Woman on Fire
by Team Damon
Summary: As a young psychiatrist working at a hospital in New York City, she's seen and heard a lot. One seemingly normal day when she sees and hears a little too much, she finds herself on an unexpected and dangerous path that takes her straight to a familiar face from her past. Matt/OC, woven into season one.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi everyone! :D A few things before I pipe down and hope you guys like this new little story of mine: to readers of Life After Death, my giant Bucky/OC story in progress, I know that I have missed quite a few updates BUT I'm working on the next one right now and it should be up this week. Also, I'm sorry for dropping off the planet over the last month :/ I've just been ridiculously busy with family and school, but I'm back and, as you can see, I've not returned empty handed :)**

 **Now, to both my followers and to new readers who have stumbled across this story: thank you all so much for checking this out! This story is fully finished already, and it'll be about four (quite large) chapters long, including this first one. This story starts after the events of the 4th episode of season one, and while some liberties are naturally taken with introducing an OC into things, it'll remain pretty much canon compliant. Midnightwings96 was so utterly instrumental and beyond helpful in helping me plot and write this that I literally could have done nothing without her, so my huge thanks and hugs to her, as always. I could sit here and brag on her all day, but in the interest of time lol, let me thank any and everyone who checks this story out in advance - thank you so much, and I hope you'll stick around to see what happens next :D and shout out to vickdrops, who is super lovely and incredibly sweet, and I hope you like this :D I'll shut up now, and look for an update soon!**

It began as a day exactly like nearly every single one that she had awoken to for the last year: cringe-inducing alarm blaring at 5, pitiful excuse for a breakfast by 5:30, feed the cat, shower and wrangling of giant mane of hair which took the longest of it all, and finally, leaving for work and getting there no later than fifteen minutes before her 12-hour shift began at 7.

It wasn't a routine for the lazy or the weak of heart, but it was _her_ routine, and she could say without hesitation that she absolutely loved it. In fact, she had never been happier to wake up at ungodly hours and be on her feet all day.

But, of course, there were exceptions to every rule, and that particular day turned out to be one hell of an exception.

She hadn't been changed into her light-green scrubs white lab coat and out of the locker room for more than ten minutes before she was in the ER, where her latest rotation was, standing at the nurse's station and being handed a chart by a man that she utterly despised.

"Hey Merida," grinned the the man, Dr. Shawn Haskell, a rather cocky fellow resident whom she had suffered through her internship alongside. He tossed her the clipboard and asked "Where's your bow? Leave it at home in DunBroch?"

"No, I lost it the last time I shoved it up your ass," she smiled brightly and with full sass, taking the chart and shoving an errant, fiery red curl behind her ear, away from the bun that it had escaped from. "You might want to see about getting it removed, unless you like that sort of thing."

He grinned and shrugged. "Well, you know, I like I what I like."

"I'm sure you do," she said, eyeing the chart. "Oh, awesome. I get another stoner."

"No, not a stoner," he replied. "This guy is tripping some kind of... I don't even know."

She looked up and raised her eyebrows. "You're a doctor. You probably _should_ know."

He shrugged again, then grabbed his cup of coffee off of the counter between them and said, "Well, I would if he was my problem, but now he's your problem. Have fun getting him stable and then bouncing him back to his cardboard box on the corner, See-o-bawn."

She sighed heavily. "Siobhan. Sha-vonne. It's been two years, man. Come on. You should know how to pronounce my name by now."

"That's why I stick with Merida!" he called back cheerfully before disappearing around the corner.

Siobhan sighed one more time before turning and heading towards the patient's room. There were a lot of cases like these this deep into the city, and being the current token psychiatric resident working the ER, all the druggies and mentally compromised seemed to get tossed her way. But she didn't mind, and as she entered the patient's room and swept the privacy curtain aside, she put a smile on her face even though she knew this guy would likely have no idea she was even there.

"Hello," she said, tone light and friendly, the opposite of what it had been a moment before. "I'm Dr. O'Donoghue. I'm here to help you, okay? Can you tell me your name?"

The man, a homeless addict in his late 30s, stared up at the ceiling with wide and glassy eyes, shaking and breathing fast and mumbling under his breath, obviously nowhere near being able to give her an answer. Nonetheless, as she came closer and checked his vitals on the monitors next to his bed, she continued to ask him questions.

"If you tell me what you took, I'll be able to help you more," she said, turning back to him and watching him continue to twitch and mumble incoherently. She frowned and said, "We're still waiting on a few test results, but until then... you're in good hands, okay? I'm going to give you something to bring you down, and then you can get some sleep and we'll go from there."

Still unresponsive, she checked his IV which he had surprisingly not torn out yet, and then turned to leave. But before she made it more than two steps away, his hand shot out and suddenly seized her forearm. She gasped in surprise and immediately tensed defensively, her free hand going for the nurse's call button to yell for help just in case, but the way that the man was suddenly looking into her eyes and speaking somewhat clearly made her stop.

His eyes were still glassy and dazed, but he was looking right at her. "They... they're... they saw me. They're coming. They're coming." His eyes filled with tears and his next words were almost a sob. " _They're coming_."

She furrowed her brows and asked, "Who's coming?"

Still staring at her, he spoke again, words jumbled and barely understandable. "Car... car... door."

"Car door?" she repeated. "Sir, you really need to try to rest and -"

His grip on her arm became tighter, and she began to get genuinely nervous. "Car door... over and over... I saw it. Saw him." His voice became a sob again. " _I saw him_. I saw what he did. He's gonna kill me, too. He's gonna cut off my head, too."

The man broke down into hysterical sobs then, and she finally managed to get her arm free as she stared at him with slightly wide eyes. "Nobody's going to kill you, sir. You're safe here. You're hallucinating right now, but you're going to be okay."

He shook his head back and forth, trembling from head to toe and becoming more distressed by the minute. He began to claw at his own arms with his fingernails, and that was the point at which she reached into the pocket of her white coat and grabbed one of the several syringes of sedative that she always kept handy when dealing with patients like this.

Only a few moments later, she had pushed the medicine into his IV and stayed with him until he succumbed and fell into a much more peaceful state. She sighed and dropped the syringe into the biohazard bin near one of the walls, looking at the man and wondering what the hell has happened to him that night to inspire all that he had been babbling about. Granted, she'd heard stranger things before - one patient who had taken some bad acid once swore to her that he was Beyoncé and was rather miffed that she wouldn't let him leave the hospital to go home to Jay-Z - but car doors and heads getting cut off... _that_ was new, and disturbing.

After leaving him in the room, she headed back towards the nurse's station and asked the nurse currently in charge, "What's the deal with the homeless guy? Did he bring himself in?"

"Sure did," the nurse replied, an older black lady named Louise who had been nursing longer than many of the other nurses had been alive. "Came stumbling in here saying someone was out to get him and that we needed to keep him safe. Something about car doors too. Why? What'd he tell you?"

"... Pretty much the same," she replied. "And something about seeing someone get their head cut off."

Louise raised her eyebrows and said, "Better not be no damn heads getting cut off around here. It's only eight in the morning. I haven't had nowhere near enough coffee yet to deal with this."

Siobhan laughed despite the current subject matter. "Yeah, same here. But I'm sure it's probably just the drugs talking. Maybe he saw a car accident."

"Or nothing," Louise pointed out.

"Or nothing," she agreed. "Well, he's gonna be out for awhile, but keep an eye out for me, would you? Page me if he wakes up."

"Will do, doc," Louise smiled, heading towards another patient room, and she smiled back before leaning against the counter and wondering if it really was nothing or if it was something. Paranoia was common on such bad trips, but there had been something about the way that he'd looked at her and said those strange words. His fear had seemed genuine, real, and truly terrifying.

But she had no way of knowing who he was or where he had come from or what he had truly seen, at least not until he woke up. So, she reached up into her hair and double checked that her long curls were behaving and staying in its bun, and then she headed off to check on her other patients.

Over the next hour, the man's words and eyes haunted her, staying ever-present in the back of her mind and getting on her nerves as she worked and went about her usual work. She stitched up a girl with a gash on her knee and admitted an older man with a case of appendicitis, all of it very routine and mundane for a doctor whose passion was for treating the mind rather than cuts and bruises. She attributed her wandering thoughts to that fact, mentally reminding herself that her rotation here in the ER only had a month left as she made her way back to check on the homeless patient.

She got delayed only two exam rooms away by an intern who asked her for help with a question rather than ask her own, much less friendly, boss. She helped the girl and then headed back on her way, this time making it to the room uninterrupted.

The curtain, she noticed as she walked inside, was drawn closed again, but it had been open when she had left. Also, the room was eerily quiet. Too quiet. There was no beeping like there was in literally every other room, and that wasn't right either, because he had been hooked up to no less than three monitors.

She lingered near the doorway, eyes trailing down the curtain until they fell on a pair of black shoes. Someone was in there, and they weren't anyone medical, because nobody with those kinds of shoes would have been seeing this particular patient. She opened her mouth and prepared to yank the curtain aside and find out who the heck was there, but the sound of a sudden, painful gurgle made her pause.

It lasted all of two seconds before it was over, but it didn't sound good. None of this sounded good, and her inner alarm bells were ringing loudly in her ears as she stepped closer and very cautiously reached towards the curtain. She then pulled it aside just far enough with one slender finger to peer at the bed, and that was when her eyes widened and heart dropped out of her chest.

She saw a cop, in full uniform, standing over the limp body of the homeless man, clutching a pillow that he'd apparently used to smother the man. The monitors showed a flatline but didn't make a sound, and it was as she gaped at the scene that the cop turned around and suddenly made a very brief and very scary moment of eye contact with her.

She dropped the curtain and ran. It was her immediate, knee-jerk reaction, and it was the right one. She ran until she was behind at least two doors that only personnel had access to, and then she hid in a supply closet for good measure, panting for air and heart racing and mind unable to believe what she had just seen.

Her paranoid drug addict homeless patient had been telling the truth. Someone really had been after him - a cop, of all people - and now he was dead. And the man who had killed him had seen her, and now knew that _she_ knew that he had killed the poor man.

She closed her eyes, sunk down to sit on the floor with her back to a shelf full of various medical supplies, and dropped her head into her hands as she tried to steady her breathing. It was no use. She'd seen a lot of patients die in her nearly two years since graduating from med school, but she'd never seen anyone be murdered before and certainly not by someone who was supposed to enforce the law and protect the citizens of New York.

... What did this even _mean_? What had the homeless man seen that was so bad that a clearly corrupt cop had come to snuff him out at _nine_ in the morning? A car door, over and over, a head being cut off, _they're_ _coming_...

They came all right. They came, they killed the guy just like he'd predicted, and now she was possibly in some very serious trouble herself.

She freaked out in the supply closet for a good long while. But once that initial panicked, shocked reaction gave way to slightly more logical thinking and a little less shaking, she began to start trying to figure out what to do next. Obviously she couldn't hide in a closet forever, but she didn't want to go and find out if the cop was still there and lurking for a chance to kill her next.

Her first instinct was, naturally, to call the police and ask for help, but... clearly, that option was off the table.

In the end, she eventually regained enough of her wits to get up and head towards the nurses' lounge, which was behind restricted doors and hopefully safe. She was pale and still shaking when she walked in, and Louise, who happened to be there grabbing more coffee, looked up and saw her and immediately began asking questions.

"There you are, Doc! I've been paging you and paging you! Your homeless guy went into cardiac arrest. He's dead. We did what we could, but... you okay?"

She shook her head and sat down in the nearest chair, waving Louise off with a trembling hand. "No, I'm not, and I'm sorry, I just... I don't... feel well..."

"I can tell," Louise said, looking her over. "You're even paler than usual. And your usual is pretty damn pale."

"I know," she groaned. "Look, just... I'll be fine, I just need a minute, okay?"

Louise pursed her lips and replied, "What you _need_ is Jesus, but that's a whole other story."

"I'm Catholic, I've got Him," Siobhan replied with a forced smile. "I'm good."

"Mmhmm," Louise said. "I sure hope so, otherwise all these patients checking out is gonna start getting to you real soon."

 _You have no idea_. "Yeah... I know."

Louise paused and left her then, after giving her a pat on the shoulder and setting down a cup of her own coffee in front of her. She really loved Louise and had since the first day that she'd stepped into the hospital as a terrified but determined intern, but she couldn't know that a murderous cop was on the loose and possibly still even in the building. Nobody else needed to be put in danger.

... But where could she go if she couldn't go to the cops?

Confused, scared and despairing in a rather hardcore fashion, she reached forward and picked up the cup of coffee that Louise had left her. She drank it fast, the slight scalding on her tongue feeling almost good in a strange way after the shock that she'd just endured. But her hands were still shaking, and as she tried to set the cup back down, she ended up dropping it and spilling the rest of the contents on the table.

Cursing at herself, she got up and tried to clean up the mess on autopilot, picking up a newspaper that had been opened and folded on one of the local sections and was now half-soaked in coffee. On her way to drop it in the trash, a small little ad down on the corner of the mostly ruined newspaper caught her eye.

At first she ignored it, thinking of far more important things like her possible new status as a soon to be murder victim. But then, just before she threw away the paper, she looked at the ad again, and this time something poked through the haze of post-traumatic shock in her head.

It was a flashback from college, of all things. Two names that rang a clear bell, Nelson and Murdock, inviting potential clients to call their law firm for a free consult. She blinked a few times, wondering if it was actually the same two guys she had briefly known during her own brief stint as a law student.

Then her eyes widened a little and she dropped the paper into the bin, dragging her phone out of her coat pocket and deciding to let Google answer her question for her. A few shakily-typed words later, she confirmed thanks to a listing of their full names that it was indeed them, and suddenly, she had an idea.

She might not be able to go to the police and she was still terrified, but maybe - _maybe_ \- a couple of lawyers could help her. Whatever this was and whatever had caused it to happen, it was obviously much bigger than her and the patient whose murder she had witnessed.

It might have been a long shot, but at that point, it was her only shot, and her mind was already made up to take it.

* * *

After just narrowly making out of her shift two hours early with a half-feigned claim of being sick, Siobhan changed back into her street clothes and made her single most paranoid trip across town that she'd ever taken. She clutched her can of military-grade mace tightly in her hand the whole time, looking over her shoulder and keeping her head down when she wasn't jumping and tensing at every noise and brush of someone else passing her on the sidewalk.

In short, she was a mess, and reaching her destination came as a huge relief, even if it wasn't exactly what she'd expected.

She had to check the address on her phone twice after she walked into the building and got an eyeful of the inside. But she was definitely in the right place, and when she got to the right office number, she squinted briefly at the piece of paper taped to the door, bearing the names of its occupants. She would have laughed had she not still been slightly shaking with terror.

Unsure of what to expect, she grabbed the doorknob and opened the door and first peered in a bit. The first thing that she saw in the office was a desk and a blonde lady behind it, who looked up from

papers spread in front of her and seemed shocked to see someone actually walk in.

A little unsure, not knowing if this idea was completely stupid or not, Siobhan walked inside and closed the door behind her as the lady smiled in surprise and said, "Hello! Can I help you?"

"Um... yeah," Siobhan replied, forcing herself to smile back and clutching her purse to her shoulder in a nervous way. "I, uh... I'm kind of having a... really serious problem, and I'm not sure where to go, but I actually used to know the guys that work here, so I thought..."

As if on cue, the already slightly-open door to the left of the receptionist lady's desk burst open and Siobhan instantly recognized the face of the eagerly smiling man who was suddenly there and staring at her like all of his dreams had just come true.

"Hi!" he smiled, thrusting his hand out towards hers immediately. "I'm... _wait_."

She smiled, shaking his hand even though he hadn't introduced himself, and it was the least forced smile she'd managed all day, since the incident.

His eyes narrowed. "I know you, don't I?"

She nodded, letting go of his hand and gesturing towards his hair. "Yup. I like your hair shorter. Makes you look more like a lawyer and less like a hippie."

Foggy's grin returned at full force as he chuckled at her words and said, "Oh man! Look at you! I haven't seen you since... Jesus, what, five years ago?"

"I'm honestly surprised that you remember me at all," she shrugged, though she was being entirely honest.

"Oh no, I'm really good at remembering faces. Plus the hair. I mean, who could forget _that_?" he said, gesturing at her rather wild red hair, which was trying its best to escape its latest haphazard bun. Siobhan laughed at that, and then Foggy glanced at Karen before helpfully supplying, "This is Karen, she works for us as you can obviously tell, and Matt is... well, I thought he was right behind me, but... _Matt!_ "

She smiled at Karen, trying to calm herself though she was no less anxious than she had been she had first walked in. She couldn't get the faces of both her dead patient and his killer out of her head, and both were flashing behind her eyes until she looked back up and was momentarily distracted by the _other_ lawyer emerging from their office.

Foggy briefly patted his arm after he walked out, walking stick in hand and eyes hidden behind dark glasses. "Matt, you remember Siobhan from college, right? She was in one of our classes until she dropped out to go become a hotshot doctor instead."

"Siobhan," Matt said quietly, nodding in her direction with a small smile. "Yeah. Wow. It's been a long time."

"Yeah it has," she agreed with a small smile, looking him over subtly. Time had been good to him, it seemed. His hair was less floppy than she remembered and he might have been even more handsome now, older and maybe a little more broad and... _well_. Like she said, had been good to him.

"How have you been?" he asked, sincerely interested. "Last I heard, you got into a pretty good med school upstate."

"Oh yeah, I did," she nodded, looking between both men. "I graduated two years ago. I'm a resident now down at Mercy."

"That's awesome!" Foggy replied. "What's your specialty?"

"Psychiatry," she replied with a proud, if still forced, smile.

" _Oh_ , that's right," Foggy nodded, grinning again. "Now I remember. You always _were_ good at getting in people's heads."

She smiled back, about to reply when Karen spoke up unexpectedly, looking at Siobhan "Not to interrupt, but... you said you had a serious problem that you needed help with?"

"What's going on?" Matt asked, both men growing more serious looking as Siobhan drew a breath and tried to ignore the brand new burst of anxiety within.

"Um... well..."

"Let's sit down first," Foggy suggested, and only a few moments later, Siobhan found herself seated across from them in their office, Karen to her left as she sat ready to take notes. She was offered coffee along the way not once but twice, but she was fairly sure that she would simply expire if she partook of any further stimulant. What she needed was a _drink_ , but she doubted they kept that handy.

"All right," Foggy said once they were all seated and ready to begin. "So what kind of problem are we talking about? We're pretty much open to... _any_ kind of case here."

She held her breath and looked around, wondering if this really was the right thing to do. She didn't know this Karen girl, and she really barely knew the two men in front of her. They might have been old friends from college, but she had barely known them for a year before they parted ways and lost touch. They might as well have been strangers now, but somehow, what little history they did share was a comfort to her in those moments, and it was the first comfort she'd had all day.

"I had a patient," she began, clearing her throat when her words came out a little hoarse. "He was in the ER today, before my shift started. One of the other doctors gave me his case. He was homeless and very, _very_ high on a lot of drugs. He was babbling about someone being out to get him and someone coming to kill him, but I thought he was just delusional. I didn't even... I just... I sedated him when he started to get violent, and then I... I left him for awhile and checked on my other patients."

She paused, looking from Foggy to Matt, who was listening very intently and carefully, if the look on his face and unmoving posture was any indication. She could see just a sliver of his eyes behind his glasses, just a fraction of occasionally blinking eyelashes, and she unknowingly made them her focal point as she forced out her next words.

"When I came back to check on him, a cop was in his room, smothering him with a pillow. I couldn't do anything, I got there too late. He was dead, and the cop turned around and saw me. I ran away as fast as I could, but I saw it and I saw the cop and now I don't know what to do because obviously I can't go to the police about this, but..."

Her voice was shaking and tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks, the fear that she'd been trying to cope with rushing out of her along with her words.

"Slow down," Matt said, his voice unexpectedly soothing to her battered nerves. "Just take a breath, okay?"

She nodded, taking a deep breath that felt as shaky as it sounded.

"You're sure it was a cop?" He asked.

"Yes," she nodded. "I'm positive."

"Do you know his name?" Foggy asked.

"No," she replied. "All I saw was his face, really."

"Then you could describe him," Matt surmised.

"Yeah, I could. "I don't think I could ever forget his face. And the way that he looked at me, I don't think he'll forget mine either."

"Damn," Foggy said, furrowing his brows. "What did this homeless guy know that made him a target of a dirty cop?"

She shrugged. "He said he saw someone get killed. Something about a car and a car door, and a head being cut off. But he was under a _lot_ of influence, so I don't know if he was just saying things or if he really did see something, but..." She swallowed and then looked at all three people surrounding her, shaking her head before going on, "I didn't know where to go, and I was freaking out so bad, and I saw your ad in the newspaper and thought that maybe, since the cops can't help me, maybe _you_ can. If you can't, I'm sorry for coming here and I'm sorry for wasting your time, but..."

"You're not," Matt assured her. "You're not wasting our time. We'll do everything in our power to help you."

As Siobhan let out a relieved breath, Foggy side-eyed Matt and asked, "You sure that we _can_? We're talking about the NYPD and dirty cops and..." He turned back to Siobhan and squinted, "Decapitations?"

"We'll do what we can," Matt replied evenly, still angled towards her. "Do you have somewhere safe to stay?"

"I have my apartment, but..." she trailed off, not really wanting to let it show how utterly terrified she was to go back there alone. She imagined the cop lurking in a corner inside waiting to off her, whether that was realistic or not.

"Do you have anywhere you can go, somewhere else you can stay for awhile?" Matt asked.

She shook her head, momentarily forgetting that he couldn't see the gesture. "No. My family doesn't live here and my friends aren't really... I don't have a lot of friends outside of work and I'm afraid I'd be putting them in danger if I asked."

"You can't go home," he replied. "It's the first place they'll look if they're trying to find you."

Just as she was ready to despair and resign herself to likely spending every last penny to her name on hotel rooms under some random alias, he added, "You can stay with me."

She blinked, glancing at Foggy who seemed not at all surprised by the offer before insisting, "Oh, no. No, I can figure something else out. If they _are_ looking for me then -"

"It's okay," Foggy shrugged. "He does this kind of thing more often than you'd think."

"But -"

"It's true," Karen piped up. "I was in a bad situation too, not that long ago, and I didn't have anywhere to go. Matt let me stay with him while they worked on my case."

Siobhan stared at her for a moment, then turned back to the men as she couldn't help but remark, "You guys really... run a hell of a practice here."

"Yeah," Foggy laughed shortly. "Apparently we really go the extra mile for our clients."

Judging by the look of the place and how flabbergasted they'd all been by her arrival, their clientele was likely nonexistent at this point, but Siobhan didn't care about that. She was starting to think that she really had come to the right place, even if she was still unsure of how wise it was to stay at a defenseless blind man's house while some evil cop was out to get her.

"Okay," she said quietly, taking another breath. "Um... do you guys take credit card?"

Matt chuckled, and Foggy replied with slightly wide eyes, "We will literally take _anything."_

She smiled, and for a moment, she felt okay. She knew it wouldn't last and sleeping was probably going to be next to impossible later, but this sure beat hiding in a supply closet and crying alone.

"All right, well, give Karen here a full description of the cop that you saw, and everything that you can remember about him and what you saw," Foggy said, standing up from the table. "We'll be right back."

"Okay," she nodded, watching them make their way out of the room. "Thank you again. Both of you."

Matt nodded towards her voice. "You're welcome."

Once they left, she took a deep breath and prepared to relive her ordeal from earlier that day for the sake of giving a thorough description. She felt better now, a lot less alone and less terrified, but that didn't stop her hands from still shaking as she began to speak.

Meanwhile, in front of the coffeemaker on the other side of the office, Foggy wondered aloud, "Why can't any of _my_ old crushes from college show up here out of the blue? Not that I'd wish any of this on them, but I'm just saying."

"I didn't have a crush," Matt replied, and Foggy gave him a knowing look as he grabbed a styrofoam cup.

"Really? Because I was _there_ , and I'm calling bullshit now, just like I did then."

"It was five years ago," Matt shrugged. "More than five years ago."

"Yeah, and now suddenly she's here and staying with you," Foggy noted. "By the way, next time we need to protect a beautiful woman from the bad guys, can _I_ get a turn being the one to heroically offer them a place to stay?"

"Sure, next time," Matt replied with a small smile, following Foggy out of the room.

"Watch, now that you said that, she'll be the last one we get," Foggy sighed. "Next one will be a dude, mark my words."

"Probably."

* * *

After night had fallen and Siobhan had given a full retelling of the day's events and every detail that she could remember, she found herself suddenly exhausted and ready to curl up into a ball and sleep for a week now that the leftover adrenaline had evaporated. But she hung on and tried to keep her head straight as she bade the others farewell and let Matt take her home to his apartment. It wasn't too far, but the whole way there, she kept her eyes wide open and checked every shadow they encountered to make sure it wasn't the cop, ready to burst out and put a bullet in both of their heads.

Paranoia was exhausting. She held a brand new sympathy for the schizophrenic patients she'd cared for in the past.

She hadn't known exactly what to expect in terms of what sort of apartment Matt was leading her to, and they stayed mostly silent until they arrived, largely because she was too busy anticipating her impending doom to say anything. But once they were in the building and walking to the right door, some of her wits returned to her.

"So you do this sort of thing... often?" she asked quietly as he unlocked the door.

"Not as often as it probably seems," he said, briefly turning towards her before opening the door and gesturing for her to walk in first.

She stared at him for a moment, partially because she knew he couldn't know that she was and could therefore get away with it, and partially because she was still trying to pinpoint all that had changed about him over the years. But then she snapped out of it and looked inside the apartment for a second before walking into it.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but whatever it had been, it wasn't this. Her eyes scanned over the space as he closed and locked the door behind them, the first words making their way out of her mouth being, "It's very... _bright_."

"Doesn't bother me," he said with a slightly ironic smile, walking out in front of her and shedding his jacket as she rolled her eyes at herself.

"Right. I'm sorry. I'm just tired and..."

"I know," he replied as she stood there, clutching her purse and feeling suddenly slightly nervous. "You've been through a lot today. Are you hungry? I don't have a lot but..."

"No," she shook her head. "I mean, I am, but the thought of eating..." Then she paused and admitted, "I wouldn't say no to a drink, though."

"I can help you there," he replied understandingly. "Go on and have a seat."

She nodded, almost offering for a moment to go and get the drink herself before her sluggish brain caught up with her and reminded her that this was his place and he was quite capable of such tasks himself. Instead, she headed towards the couch and sat down, placing her purse aside and looking at the two large windows to the right of the couch. The giant neon billboard on the other side of windows was quite jarring and horribly placed, but she only dwelled on it for a moment before she felt the couch depress next to her.

She turned her head and smiled, taking the offered glass gratefully from Matt's hand. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied quietly, sitting back with his own glass, though he didn't gulp it as immediately as she did.

The burn felt good, and she drank half of it in one mouthful, even if she didn't technically like scotch all that much. But she'd never liked it more than she did that night.

"Do you have plans tomorrow?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Just work," she replied. "I work seven to seven. And... I'm going to need to stop by my place and feed my cat in the morning." Poor little Oreo. Still a kitten and all alone in her dark apartment that night, but at least she'd been fed already that day.

"You might want to call a neighbor and ask them to take care of that," Matt suggested.

"I don't really know any of my neighbors," she admitted. "Just technically this one guy who lives below me and keeps asking me out, but I definitely don't want to ask him for help."

He smiled for a second, then replied, "Maybe we could ask Karen to take care of the cat. I don't think she'd mind."

As a woman who in general despised asking for help from anyone, for a number of long-existing reasons, she couldn't help but reply, "I can do it. I can't avoid my apartment forever."

"No, but you came to us for help," he pointed out. "That's what I'm trying to do."

"I know," she nodded quietly, looking down at the glass in her hand. "And I'm incredibly grateful for everything you've already done. I was so scared today and I had no idea what to do or where to go... and it was totally by chance that I saw the newspaper ad."

"I'm glad you did," he said. "But you're in the middle of something very serious. You need to be careful. Is there any way you can take some time off work?"

"No," she frowned. "I'm just a resident. A first year resident, actually. I had to really lay it on thick to leave the hospital just two hours early today."

"Okay," he replied. "Can you keep a weapon on you there?"

"Well, I'm not _supposed_ to."

"Do it anyway, just in case he shows up again. And if you see him, call us."

"Okay," she agreed, though she wondered what help two lawyers were supposed to be in that kind of situation. But she didn't ask, because any help was better than no help.

"Once we find out who this guy is," Matt went on, "we can start building a case against him and find out what's going on. I have a contact at the police department. We're gonna figure this out."

She wished that he could know how comforting his words were, even if she was still skeptical of what they could actually do. "I feel kind of bad for showing up out of nowhere and dumping all of this on you. I feel like the worst old college friend ever in the history of old college friends."

That made him laugh, just a little. "I wish the circumstances were better too, for your sake. Other than all of this, though, it sounds like things have gone well for you."

She smiled, nodding. "Yeah, they have. Wasn't easy, but... I made it and I'm happy."

"How are things with your parents?" he asked. "If I remember correctly, they weren't happy with your change of plans."

Surprised that he remembered that whole story, she smiled again. "They were furious. And they meant it when they said they wouldn't support me if I dropped out of law school for med school. But I figured it out. They got over it once my little sister decided to become a lawyer. She's got two years left."

"So you're the family rebel," he noted.

"Yup. And she's their pride and joy, taking on the family legacy," she chuckled. "They had a heart attack when I told them I was moving here for good, after everything that happened a few years ago."

"Understandable," Matt replied. "Alien invasions can be a little off-putting."

"Little bit," she smiled, again looking him over. He hadn't touched his drink, and she wondered if she could steal it after she finished hers. "But I guess we're both still in the middle of our... humble beginnings."

"You're calling my luxurious office humble?" he joked, and she laughed. "I'm offended."

"Hey, it's no worse than my sticking band-aids on people in the ER all day," she smiled. "I mean, I love what I do, but I'm not _there_ yet, you know?"

"Yeah, I do," he nodded.

They paused then, and Siobhan blinked down at the glass in her hand. "Wow. For a minute there I almost forgot about the whole... target on my back thing."

"Everything's gonna be okay," he assured her, sounding like he really believed it. "I'm gonna keep you safe."

She was still skeptical. But the way that he sounded so confident and assured that he really could keep her safe, she couldn't help but think maybe he really could.

She didn't know it, but her heartbeat reached the slowest and steadiest rhythm that it had since the incident had first occurred. Her breaths were easier and further apart, less tense and short, and they sat in comfortable silence until he said, "You should try to sleep. You need it after the day you've had."

"Yeah," she agreed, just before finishing off her drink and wincing again at the burn of the alcohol as it went down her throat.

"You can change if you want," he said, standing up. "I'll walk you to my room."

She stared at him blankly for a moment. "Oh, I... no, I can sleep here on the couch."

He smiled briefly in amusement. "You sure about that?"

She glanced at the windows, then shrugged. "I sleep with my TV on. It's no big deal."

"Maybe not, but still, I insist," he replied, leaving little room for argument.

She wanted to argue anyway, but really, she just didn't have the energy to. She could have laid down on the hard floor and passed out effortlessly, but he was too nice to accept no for an answer and she was too tired to try to resist. Giving in, she stood up and said quietly, "You didn't have to do any of this, you know. Give me a place to stay, help me like this."

"Yes I did," he replied as she set her glass down next to his on the small table.

"It's very Catholic of you," she grinned. "I don't think you've changed one bit."

He didn't answer that, instead just smiling faintly and then leading her to his room. She knew that she was wrong, that he _had_ changed, but she still couldn't put her finger on exactly how and her brain was far too overworked to try to figure it. She left the thought for another day and instead quietly followed him, thanking him again when he left her alone in his bedroom holding one of his shirts to change into.

Being on the shorter side, the shirt was a bit dwarfing but all the more comfortable for it. After a brief few moments in the bathroom and a few more spent fighting with her hair to keep out of her face, she decided to peek out into the living room one last time before collapsing into a coma.

He was throwing a blanket on the couch, his glasses off of his face and sitting on the table next to their empty cups. He seemed to hear her coming, pausing and turning her way a little as she lingered in the doorway and felt suddenly out of sorts.

"I just wanted to thank you again," she said, seeing his eyes for the first time that day. She remembered thinking before, years ago, that they were nice on the rare few occasions that she'd seen them.

"It's no problem," he assured her.

"Last chance to let me take the couch instead," she said with a small chuckle.

He smiled and shook his head. "Not a chance. Go get some sleep."

"Fine," she smiled, fiddling with the overly long sleeves dangling from her wrists. "Goodnight."

He returned the sentiment quietly before she turned and walked back to his room, suddenly even more exhausted now and feeling like she'd been hit by a train and left for dead.

She climbed into his bed and nearly groaned with relief the minute her head hit the pillow. His bed was better than hers back home, his sheets absolutely luxurious compared to the cheap cotton ones she tolerated in order to remain frugal. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that they smelled pretty good too, but before she could figure out why, she was unconscious and lost to a deep, exhausted slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: thank you guys so much for your response to this story so far! :D I am so incredibly excited and happy that you guys are liking this, and I hope you all continue to like it :D After looking it over again, this story's gonna end up being five chapters, not four lol, and since this was originally intended to be a oneshot, keep that in mind as you read since time passes pretty briskly in the story. But anyway, I hope you guys like this next part! Please review and let me know! :D**

Three days passed. Siobhan went back to work with a taser and a can of mace hidden in her lab coat at all times, and when Louise would ask why she was so twitchy these days, she'd play it off and act like she was fine. Louise didn't believe her but, being the friend that she was, she gave her space and didn't press the issue.

When her shifts would end, she'd head to Matt and Foggy's office and they would talk about new leads or developments that had come to light that day, and then Matt would take her back to his place to sleep. It was the new routine, and one thing was for sure - it could have been a lot worse.

Karen took in Oreo herself, offering to care for the kitty until Siobhan could go back to her own apartment. She had to hide the cat as her building didn't allow pets, and that made Siobhan all the more grateful for the effort that she was putting into helping her.

Over those three days, they learned several new facts related to her case. Firstly, they did identify the cop, but they also found out that he had taken a personal leave of absence from the force the day that he'd killed the homeless man, so his whereabouts were unknown. Secondly, they found out that there had been a decapitation days before, and that the victim had been a leader of the Russian mob. Siobhan had nearly thrown up when Matt had told her that, as it meant that she'd unwittingly gotten herself into something even worse than she'd originally thought. The fact that a vigilante making headlines in Hell's Kitchen was the one apparently suspected of cutting off the mobster's head was just the icing on the horrible cake.

After evening had fallen that third day, Siobhan was becoming increasingly convinced of something that none of the three people helping her would hear a word of. She was convinced that she needed to just drop the case, drop all of it, and leave town before she got herself or the others killed. With cops and mobsters and vigilantes at the center of it all, it was clearly more than a doctor and a couple of very green lawyers could realistically handle.

But none of them were willing for her to sacrifice her life and career in the city to ensure their safety. In fact, they all seemed to be willing to jump through ridiculous hoops to keep her there and keep her safe, and it touched her as much as terrified her.

She still wasn't even convinced that staying with Matt was a smart idea. When she walked into their office that third day to find a cut above his eye and hear his explanation of apparently taking a tumble earlier that day, all she could imagine was how much she would hate herself if he got _really_ hurt because of her.

Still, she went home with him again that night regardless. He gave her little choice in the matter, and his presence over the last three days had been the most constant source of comfort that she had. He had a way of getting her mind off of things when they'd go home at night, and she always felt a little better when he was around. It made her remember why they'd been friends way back when, although then their interactions hadn't been tainted by her fear of getting them both killed.

Nonetheless, that night she felt as close to at ease as she got anymore as they made their way up to his apartment, a bag of Chinese food dangling from her fingers as she noted, "You know, we could have been home like an hour ago if you hadn't turned down the first place I suggested. I mean, you walked in and like immediately decided that the place was unacceptable and then left. I still don't get it."

He smiled, shrugging slightly. "It smelled weird."

"It smelled like every other Chinese place in the city," she chuckled.

"Well, the place I picked was cheaper," he pointed out. "Cheaper's always better."

She laughed and eyed him incredulously. "Man, you must not have ever had food poisoning before."

"It's been awhile," he admitted.

Nearing the top of the building, something that Siobhan had been wondering occasionally over the last few days floated to the surface, and she couldn't help but ask, "So, there isn't some girl somewhere who's gonna be pissed because I'm staying with you and she doesn't know, right?"

"If there was, that would be news to me," he quipped, fishing in his pocket for his keys once they got to his door.

She smiled at his response, following him inside when the door was opened. "Nobody special? Kinda hard to believe."

He scoffed quietly, closing the door behind her. "Is it?"

"Little bit," she replied, heading for the living room and setting down the food on the table.

"I'm too busy anyway," he said, and she was glad that he couldn't see the incredulity on her face as she sat down on the couch.

"Really? Because I'm your only client right now," she pointed out as he made his way towards her and the food. "I'm pretty sure you could find time for a date."

"Maybe," he conceded, sitting down next to her. After she handed him his box of food, along with a handful of sauce packets that she identified for him without him asking first, he said, "I could also ask if there's a guy somewhere who won't be happy when he finds out that you've been staying here."

 _That_ made her scoff. "God, no. I haven't had a real date in... yeah. I'm just not even going to say how long it's been."

"Too busy?" he guessed.

"Too busy and not interested in what I've encountered," she replied. "There was one guy I liked. Radiologist at the hospital. Really nice, good looking, asked me to lunch a couple times."

"What happened?"

"He turned out to be married with three kids," she sighed.

"Ouch."

"Yeah. It's kind of a recurring theme," she said between shoveling mouthfuls of food. "I like someone and they end up having this major flaw that makes me run the other way. It's usually a lot more subtle than being married, though. At least with him I found out right away, before I had a chance to really care."

"That's a very... cynical way of looking at the positives," he remarked, and she couldn't argue.

"Yeah, but everybody's got secrets, you know? I'd rather know them up front and skip all the drama down the road, save myself the trouble."

He didn't reply to that one, and his silence made her glance up at him just to check that she hadn't said something wrong. His expression was unreadable for a moment, and she was pretty sure that he was about to say something. But then he stopped and turned his head towards the front door and froze.

She furrowed her brows and paused as well, watching him as he appeared to be listening carefully for something. His eyes were unmoving behind his glasses, so very serious all of a sudden, barely blinking as she stared and tried to figure out what was wrong.

"Is... something wrong, or..."

"Siobhan," he said, voice low but even as he turned her way. "Go in my room and close the door. Take your bag and keep your taser close. Don't come out until I come get you."

That quickly, her heart dropped into a pit of terror. " _What_? What's - Matt, what the _hell_ are you -"

In a flash, he had pulled them both to their feet and seized her shoulders. "Do you trust me?"

"I... _yes_ , but -"

"Then you need to do what I said," he told her sincerely, giving her a nudge towards his room. "Go, and no matter what you hear, don't come out."

Eyes wide and heart racing, she was one breath away from arguing but then a loud pounding at the front door and a deep bellowing of _NYPD_ made her clam up and stare at Matt with even wider eyes.

"Go," he said, one more time, and then she was doing the unthinkable - leaving a blind man to go very possibly deal with a man who was there to kill her.

She ran to his room on the verge of sudden hysterical tears. This was it, it was over, and she wasn't the only one who was going to pay the price. What was she _thinking_?

She _wasn't_ thinking. She slammed his door shut and fumbled with violently trembling hands through her purse, grabbing the taser and clutching it to her chest as she pressed her forehead to the door and tried to listen. She heard another pounding and another demand to open the door, and then after that, for a few moments, _nothing_.

She decided in those moments that if death came, at least it would save her from the crushing, paralyzing guilt that would haunt her forever if any harm came to Matt because of her.

She listened and waited. And when she heard a gunshot, she gasped and covered her mouth with a shaking hand, feeling herself break at the thought of what that sound might have meant.

* * *

He'd heard them coming from the first moment they stepped inside his building. There was two of them, and he knew why they were there. This had been inevitable. He was confident in what the outcome would be, but he wished that the circumstances would have been a bit different.

Nonetheless, he went to the door and opened it after the second impatient pounding that rang out through it. Playing the part of an average tenant who most certainly could not smell the pizza the men had gorged on before tracking their target to his apartment, he smiled and said, "Can I help you, officers?"

"We've got a warrant for the arrest of a woman, Siobhan O'Donoghue," the man closest to the door said. He was tall, broad, like Siobhan's description of the man who had killed her patient. His heart rate was off the charts, while that of his partner was calm and steady. "We know she's in there with you."

"Can I see the warrant?" Matt asked, apparently to the amusement of the second officer.

"Doesn't look like you can _see_ much of anything," the second guy said, bypassing the first as he rushed closer to the door. "Step aside, sir."

"Call your chief on the phone," Matt said calmly, not even flinching and standing his ground. "When he tells me the warrant's real, then I'll let you in."

"No," the second officer said, going for the gun at his hip. "You'll let us in now."

The sound of the gun's safety clicking off and the bullets sliding into the chamber was as loud to Matt's ears as a gunshot itself would have been. It was also the end of his inaction, as he let go of the door and went for the second officer's arm instead, forcing it aside and aiming the gun at the wall just inside his apartment. The gun went off, loud and jarring, but the bullet embedded itself uselessly into the drywall.

The gun hit the floor when Matt dislocated the man's arm and then kicked him hard in the stomach. The other officer sprang forward when that one staggered back with a cry of pain, but he was nervous and conflicted and bewildered, making him almost too easy for Matt to incapacitate.

Only the second, less nervous officer managed to land a hit, and it was square in the eye. The glasses still on Matt's face shattered and the frames hit the floor, cutting him right underneath his eye along the way. It didn't matter. He had faced much worse than what was before him now, and it was only a short matter of time before both men were unconscious - one in the hallway, and one in the doorway of his apartment.

Breathing hard with adrenaline and exertion, he stood over the men and listened to their heartbeats to confirm that they were truly out. Once he was satisfied, his focus drifted to another presence behind him - this one familiar, with a heartbeat sounding like a butterfly's rapidly flapping wings.

He turned Siobhan's way, wishing that she'd stayed inside his room like he'd said. "It's okay," he assured her. "It's over."

"I heard a gun, and I... _oh my God_ , Matt, did they... are they..."

He went to her and stopped her before she could get any closer to the men, or to the guns laying on the floor. His hands gently on her upper arms, he said, "They're alive. Just knocked out. The bullet went into the wall. I'm fine."

"You're bleeding," she said, touching trembling fingertips to his face just once, for a fraction of a second. He blinked a few times, having not expected that.

"I'm fine," he said again, this time a little more quietly.

Her heart was still pounding and her breathing was still hard and fast. "But how did you _do_ all of that? I opened the door when I heard the gun, and I _saw_ you fight them."

He clenched his jaw, knowing there was only a few ways in which a conversation like this one could end. But now wasn't the right time. "I'll explain later. I will. But right now I have to get these guys out of here. Can you tell me if that's the same guy you saw in the hospital?"

"Yeah," she said quietly, and he let go of her as she stepped around him and slowly walked towards the men.

She didn't go far before she stopped and said quietly, "Yeah, that's him. The big one. I don't know who the other one is."

"Okay. Go back in my room and try to calm down. This won't take me long."

He heard the alarm in her voice as she asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to make sure they face justice," he replied simply. "And that they never try to hurt you again."

She fell silent, and he couldn't blame her. He could only imagine the questions running through her head at that point. He also knew that she was far from stupid, and that when he came back and faced the inevitable barrage of questions, he would either have to lie to a degree high for even a lawyer or be entirely truthful - there was no in between.

"Okay," she finally said. "Be careful."

She sounded confused. He nodded and then turned away from her, focusing on one task at a time. First he had to deal with the men, and then after that, he could give her his full and undivided attention.

And though he would have liked to have pretended otherwise, for some reason, there was never a question in his mind of how he would answer her questions. He _should_ lie, for both of their sakes, but he knew that he wouldn't.

He also knew why he wouldn't, but he _really_ didn't have time to deal with _that._

* * *

True to his word, he really didn't take long, and by the time that he was back, Siobhan had taken the liberty of downing just one shot of his liquor to steady her nerves. She was even more frazzled than she'd been that day at the hospital, due mostly to that damn gunshot and her immediate assumption that Matt had been on the receiving end of it. As bad as she had felt for the homeless guy, he hadn't been her friend nor a man who had been putting himself at risk by giving her shelter. This had been so much worse.

She just hadn't expected to open the bedroom door and find out that that same friend was basically some kind of master ninja in his spare time.

She was sitting on the couch, in front of which their now very cold dinner still sat on the small table, and he didn't say a word as he made his way to sit next to her. She watched him as he walked and didn't take her eyes off of him as he sat down, all of her questions swirling together in her mind and bursting to get out.

"Are you okay?" he asked, angling his head towards her, eyes cast down between them. She was glad that his glasses were still off, though he could have put spares on. She always preferred him like that.

"Yes and no," she replied quietly and honestly. "You're still bleeding."

Rather than wait for him to answer, she got up and left him on the couch as she retrieved a first aid kit that she'd seen in his bathroom before, under the sink. It looked suspiciously new, maybe like he went through them a little too often, but that didn't seem too surprising now.

Upon getting back to the couch, she set the supplies down on the table and sat back down, closer to him this time. He didn't move, eyes somewhere south of her neck as she gently instructed him, "Lean your head back a little so I clean that cut."

He nodded and did as she said, not saying a word as she got started. She did this a lot in the ER, and the routine of it all was oddly comforting as she slowly gathered her thoughts and decided on her first question.

"How did you know they were coming way before they even knocked?"

He blinked when she asked the question. She was still disinfecting the cut when he replied, "I heard them."

"You heard them," she repeated. "How? How did you know they were coming for me?"

He stayed silent. She frowned, reaching for a small butterfly bandage. When he remained mum, she switched to a different line of questioning. "How... and _why_... can you fight like that?"

"I was trained," he replied simply, as she pressed the bandage down.

"Just for the hell of it?" she asked in disbelief. "That wasn't like... basic self defense. That was... that was something out of the movies. A _good_ movie."

His lips gave a slight quirk but he said nothing. The cut taken care of, she leaned back and muttered, "If you're just going to sit there and say _nothing_..."

"I don't want to lie to you," he said, taking her by surprise. "But you're safer if you don't know."

"Safe? I'm sorry, but I'm feeling pretty damn _un_ safe right now," she admitted, "so why not just tell me the truth?"

He looked away, eyes moving deliberately away from her and towards nothing. "Because I don't know what you'll think of me if I do."

It was such a simple, almost innocent answer. She decided to go the same route with her response. "Remember what I said about secrets and how I like to get them out from the start, so there's no surprises later? I wasn't just saying that."

"I didn't think that applied to me," he replied.

She paused, recalling that she _had_ mentioned that in regard to potential lovers.

 _Well_...

"Let's say it does," she said, deciding to just get to the point for now. "How did you know they were coming?"

"I heard them," he replied, exactly as he had before. "And I smelled them."

Her eyes widened. "You... smelled them."

"Yeah."

"So you have... super hearing and smelling?" she deduced.

"You remember the story I told you back in school, of how I went blind?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied, remembering every detail over five years later.

"I didn't just lose my sight," he explained, tone quiet and body language unsure, like telling this story was by no means easy for him. "My other senses... i _mproved."_

"... That's normal, right?"

"It is," he nodded, "but not the way mine did."

"... Okay," she said, still lost.

"I heard those men coming the same way I heard your heart pounding across the room when it was over," he added.

"You can _hear_ my heart beat?" she asked with wide eyes.

He nodded. "Only if I concentrate. I can also hear the traffic outside, people talking, neighbors arguing."

She stared at him in bewilderment, caught between wondering if he was pulling her leg or if he was serious. But how could this be a joke, especially when she'd seen evidence of what he was saying? "So... all of your other senses are like this, too?" When he nodded, she paused and asked, "Is that why you didn't want eat at the first Chinese place we tried?"

"Their chicken was bad," he explained. "I could smell it, but I didn't think you would believe me if I told you."

She definitely wouldn't have. "Wow... okay. So you have super-senses thanks to your accident. That's... _wow_. But... that doesn't explain the ninja stuff."

He sighed quietly. "No, it doesn't."

For the next half an hour, Siobhan sat and soaked up every word that Matt said, some of it shocking her and some of it making her laugh, but most of it leaving her in quiet awe of him. He didn't tell her _everything_ , and she didn't push him to tell her more than what he was willing to. She did, however, piece together something in her head that had been slowly coming together ever since she had watched him fight those two cops earlier that night.

He was a man with secrets. He had skills and talents that he admitted to her that only one or two others knew of, and those people did not include his own best friend. He was a fighter, a _good_ one, and taking on those men had seemed like it was something of a routine for him, like nothing new, merely more of what he was used to.

But how could that be true if he was a lawyer by day and kept this entire side of himself under wraps from the people he was closest to? What was the point of keeping it a secret, unless he _had_ to?

And with that last thought, Siobhan figured it out.

"You're the vigilante. The guy in the mask," she said quietly, after his stories had drawn down and the realization had come to her.

His silence was louder than any yes could have been.

"You _are_ ," she marveled. "My God, Matt..."

"What they say isn't true," he said, not even trying to deny what she found to be glaringly obvious now that she had seen it. "I didn't do what they think I did."

"You mean you didn't cut off the Russian guy's head?" she asked, feeling herself start to get worked up all over again. "That's... comforting."

"Look, just... try to calm down," he said, hand briefly reaching out for her before he seemed to think better of it and pulled it back.

"I _am_ calm," she insisted, clearly lying.

"No, you're not. You're heart's racing and you're trembling again."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes and then turned away, muttering, "Well, guess I'm screwed if I ever try to lie to you about anything."

"Yeah," he replied quietly. "Comes in handy with work."

She shook her head, trying to process one thing at a time. "I just... this is... literally the last thing I think I ever expected to hear. I don't even know how all of this is possible. And you're this... vigilante. You could _die_ out there, you know."

"I've made it so far," he said with a tiny smile, maybe trying to help put her at ease.

"But you might not forever," she pointed out. "Even if you're like... r _eally_ good at beating people up."

"You sound like you're very impressed," he grinned, and she rolled her eyes.

"And you keep trying to change the subject, or... deflect," she replied. "And _yes_ I'm impressed, but I'm also confused and still pretty shocked and... worried about you."

Her last few words were quiet. He shook his head. "Don't worry about me."

She laughed a small scoff. "I think I'd be a pretty bad friend if I wasn't worried about you. And it's not because you're blind, since obviously you can take care of yourself and kick ass anyway, but..."

"I know," he said. "I never wanted to put any of this on you. I just wanted to keep you safe."

"You have," she replied quietly, looking into his eyes and wishing that he could see how sincere she was. "I owe you my life."

"You don't owe me anything," he assured her.

She strongly disagreed, but she kept her mouth shut and a short, comfortable silence fell upon them over the next few moments. Eventually, something broke through the lingering shock and bewilderment in her head, and she asked, "Is it over?"

"I hope so," he replied, turning his eyes back in her direction.

"Do you think I could go home now?"

"I think you should find a new place first," he replied. "Just in case."

"Oh. Yeah, you're right." Then she paused and added, "You might be stuck with me for a little longer, then."

He smiled a little. "I don't mind the company."

"Yeah, but you must miss your bed," she teased, starting to feel like she was finally on her way back to being calm since before the evening had gone to crap. "And after that fight tonight, you shouldn't have to sleep on a couch."

"I'll be fine," he said, brushing her off. "They barely touched me."

She sighed, shaking her head and looking him over, still in disbelief that such a vicious fighter laid underneath such an unassuming exterior. "I still can't believe all of this. I've never seen anything like that in person before. I wish _I_ could fight like that. Bad cops trying to kill me wouldn't scare me nearly as bad if I could."

She stared somewhat wistfully off into nothingness, just at the living room wall, until Matt said something that made her head snap up so fast she nearly hurt herself. "I could teach you."

She stared at him for several seconds before she managed to reply, "You _would_? Really?"

"You said it yourself," he explained. "You wouldn't be as scared if you knew how to defend yourself."

"Yeah, but... I don't know the first thing about self defense," she replied.

He shrugged. "We all have to start somewhere."

"Are you sure?" she squinted. "I don't want to take up all your free time or... waste it."

"You won't," he replied sincerely. "I'll teach you the basics. And I'll be a lot nicer to you than my teacher was to me." He paused and quirked his lips. "It'll be fun."

She laughed. "Fun? Really? Well, if you say so..."

His smile was genuine, and it helped to thaw some of the iciness that she'd felt inside since the terrifying moments of earlier. "I'll go easy on you."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she chuckled, and he nodded as one more comfortable silence fell.

She would need a few days to fully comprehend everything that she had learned and experienced over the last three days, but she was alive and things were possibly, maybe, starting to look up. It felt like her life had irrevocably changed over an incredibly short amount of time, and maybe it had. Now it was just time to keep moving.

But first, sleep was calling them both. She cleaned up the remains of their earlier, interrupted dinner while he got ready for bed. Something began to nag at the back of her mind and wouldn't let up no matter what she did, and once his living room was clean and he was walking back into it, dressed for sleep and heading straight for the couch, she decided to hell with it and gave in to the annoying voice in her head.

"Um..." she began eloquently, slowly walking his way once he had reached the couch and was standing in front of it. "Thank you again, for... not just today, but for everything."

His eyes were cast in her direction as she came closer, almost like he was really seeing her. "You're welcome, Siobhan."

"And thank you for not lying to me," she added, standing close to him now.

He nodded, then quipped dryly, "I probably should have."

She smiled. "Yeah, maybe. But I'm glad you didn't."

He didn't reply, but he stayed where he was, facing her and making no effort to turn away. She stared at him for just a few seconds too long before she took one more step and closed the short distance between them, giving him a hug that felt incredibly necessary after everything that he had done for her.

She also just needed a hug herself after the ordeal she'd been through.

He only hesitated for a moment before he hugged her back, and she sunk into the embrace like it was exactly what she had been waiting for all night. Standing on the tips of her toes with her arms wrapped around his neck and her head on his shoulder, she closed her eyes and soaked up the comfort and the familiarity of him. He'd been nothing but a distant memory only days ago, but traumatic events had a way of making things change rather quickly.

She didn't want it to end, but when she knew that she had been clinging to him just a little too long, she pulled away. Letting her hands linger on his shoulders and keeping her eyes cast down between them, she muttered, "When I heard that gunshot I thought you were dead. I thought they killed you and that it was my fault."

He hadn't let go of her entirely, either. His arms were still around her, hands on her back and grazing her sides. When he didn't say anything in reply, she looked up and felt her heart briefly stutter at how close they were, how close _he_ was, and how his eyes were cast down right upon her. She hadn't expected the sudden flip that her stomach did, nor the way that her blood started pumping faster, and she forgot that he could hear her heartbeat giving away how affected she was by his proximity.

Her eyes dropped down to his lips, and to stop herself from leaning forward and doing something she hadn't even known that she wanted to do until she suddenly had the chance, she licked her lips and said, "I'm sorry that I dragged you into all of this. And for the bullet that's in your wall."

He smiled, one hand softly rubbing her back in a soothing gesture that didn't go unappreciated. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

She nodded, disagreeing a bit but not currently capable of fully coherent thought, as close as they were. Recognizing where they were headed if one of them didn't pull away soon, she took it upon herself to let her hands drop from his shoulders and step out of his arms, back into the safety of her own personal space. But she found herself immediately a little bit colder, and wishing that she had stayed where she was.

"Well... goodnight," she said finally, taking one more step back towards his room.

"Goodnight," he replied quietly, just the smallest hint of a smile on his lips before he turned away, towards the blanket that he then picked up and began to spread out on the couch.

And despite everything that had happened that day, Siobhan then went to bed with a smile on her face. But, that smile faded once she was underneath the inviting silk sheets and suddenly remembered Matt's super-hearing and that he had undoubtedly been listening to her heart thud loudly in her chest almost the entire them they'd been close. She closed her eyes and groaned, even though she knew full well she couldn't have done a thing about it. Besides, her reaction had caught even her by surprise.

But then again, maybe it was just the leftover adrenaline, or an exaggerated response to the embrace of a man that she had thought she'd gotten killed earlier. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. But maybe, most of all, it simply didn't matter.

Whatever it was or wasn't, she'd deal with it in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: thank you guys so much for reading/following/reviewing this story! This is kinda the halfway point, and if these chapters seem short compared to my usual fare, the next one after this is more up to my usual standards (and my favorite lol). But anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter, and I look forward to your feedback! :D**

Life didn't exactly go back to normal following that night, but it got as close to normal as Siobhan thought she was going to get. She kept working and found a new apartment near the hospital, though she lost her deposit on her old apartment thanks to her breaking of the lease. It was a small price to pay, all things considered, and within a few weeks of the attempted attack on her, she was living on her own again and finally out of Matt's hair. Sort of.

He had proven how serious he was about his offer to teach her how to fight by giving her lessons in his apartment several times a week. She hadn't been kidding about knowing _nothing_ about self-defense, and the first few times he taught her it was like learning a new language. Going through medical school, her focus was on healing and rebuilding the body and, with her focus in psychiatry, the mind. She'd never given any thought to causing damage on purpose, but she believed fully in the necessity of learning it now. She didn't want to be defenseless or completely dependent on others for her safety, and Matt seemed to have sincere faith in her ability to learn.

And she did. By the time that a month had passed with no new threats or attempts on her life, Siobhan had started to enjoy the new normal of her life. Work was going well - her rotation in the ER was over and she was finally working on the hospital's psych floor - and training with Matt was actually kind of fun. She spent more time with him outside of work than anyone else, and if she was starting to grow attached to his charm and constant presence, she never stopped to think twice about it. They both seemed to need what they gave each other, which was the chance to be more honest and open than they could be with others.

And that was all it was, regardless of how fast her heart would pound when she'd feel his breath on her ear as he held her in a lock and she would use what he'd taught her to escape, or how much she loved it when she'd say something silly over dinner on his couch and make him really, genuinely laugh.

They were just friends, and that was fine. She wasn't sure that she could handle anything more with a man who carried the sort of secrets that he did.

All of that was nearly the last thing on her mind as she made her way home one night from work, not looking over her shoulder as incessantly but still very much aware of her every surrounding. She didn't expect to ever stop looking over her shoulder, even if the threats she'd faced were passed now. Women in New York still faced danger of all kinds every day, and that was why she only let herself breathe and relax fully once she was off of the street and stepping inside of her apartment.

She closed the door and locked it behind her, reaching up behind her head and letting down her long, wild red hair from its usual bun, just before she realized that something felt _off_ and she stopped in her tracks.

She looked around, trying to pinpoint what it was. It wasn't the lights, because they had been off as she'd left them. Everything else looked the same, nothing was out of place. Something, however, just felt... wrong.

Knowing full well that she was likely just being paranoid, she took out her can of mace from her purse and then left the bag on the floor, slowly walking towards the entrance of her small kitchen. She checked the corners and found nothing, then continued on towards the living room, which was behind a wall and blocked from her view until she turned the corner.

Once she did, a hand seizing her wrist from the darkness and knocking the mace out of her hand sent her reeling and flying into a panic. In that split second, thinking that this was it and that she really was still a target and was caught, her instincts sprang to life and she put her new skills to the test. She attacked the unknown man, landing a knee somewhere near his stomach and pulling her arm free when his grip slackened upon impact. But then he was grabbing her, saying something that she couldn't hear because she was screaming, trying to make as much noise as possible. His hand clamped over her mouth and a short but fierce struggle ensued, Siobhan fighting back and desperate to escape, eventually finding herself slammed to the wall as an oddly familiar voice hissed in her ear.

"It's me, Siobhan, it's me. Stop fighting me."

She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly and still struggling. The room was dark and it was hard to see the man's face, but his voice was unmistakable.

"It's _me_."

Slowly, the panic and the fear drained from her eyes. He dropped his hand from her mouth, and she gasped, " _Matt_?"

"I'm sorry," he said, breathing hard just inches away from her, his body all but pinning hers to the wall. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"What are you _doing_ here?" She demanded, and as if to answer her question, he almost immediately faltered and grimaced as he held his side.

"I was in the neighborhood and... needed some help," he admitted, easing off of her and leaning against the wall as she quickly ran to turn the lights on. Once that was taken care of, she turned and felt her confusion and slight anger give way to sheer concern and shock upon seeing him in the light.

"Oh my God," she said under her breath, hurrying to his side and taking his arm to lead him to the couch. "What happened? Come on, you need to lay down."

She helped him to the couch, then carefully helped to ease him down on it once they got there. He was dressed in black and was bloody, his clothes ripped and face bruised, all in all looking like he'd come out on the losing end of a bad fight.

"You need a doctor," she said, kneeling in front of the couch and finding herself afraid to check the extent of his injuries.

"I know," he said, eyes closed and still breathing hard. "That's why I came to one."

"No, I mean a hospital," she replied impatiently, though her medical instincts took over as she began to examine him. She started by slowly lifting up his shirt.

"Well, I have a... friend who would normally stitch me up, but I couldn't reach her."

His words went over her head as she pulled the shirt up to his chest and gaped. "Were you _stabbed_?"

"Once or twice," he replied. "Can you fix it?"

"Fix it?" she repeated, looking up at him with wide eyes. "I'm... this is my apartment, not the ER. I don't keep suture kits laying around. This is _bad_ , Matt, and you need a real doctor!"

"You _are_ a real doctor," he replied, without a hint of insincerity. "I'm sorry that I showed up like this, Siobhan. I didn't want to, but your place was close and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

She stared at him, then looked down at the gash in his side and the bruises on his stomach, as dark purple as the ones on his face. Her hands were shaking and she felt the vague urge to be sick, which was not something she normally experienced around blood, but this was _Matt_ and seeing him like this made her want to close her eyes and not open them again until he was magically better.

"Please, Siobhan," he said, just barely above a whisper. "Please just do what you can."

And just like that, she knew that she needed to get herself together and take action. All he had was her, and she could do this. She _had_ to.

"Okay," she nodded, raking her hair out of her face, sitting back on her heels and taking a centering breath. " _Okay_. Just let me think and... get a few things. I've got first aid stuff, and I _might_ have something I can use to stitch you up somewhere."

"Thank you," he said quietly, and she answered him with a gentle touch to his arm before getting to her feet and rushing towards her bathroom.

She got lucky. She ended up finding everything she needed under her bathroom sink and from an old backpack from her days as an intern, and she carried her supplies to the living room in one full-armed trip. Once she was back and settled in on the floor next to his side, she first helped him take his shirt off and then got a pair of gloves on, eyeing the main wound at his side darkly. She'd dealt with worse before as a doctor, but the thought of someone attacking and stabbing the man in front of her made her want to hunt them down and stab them back.

"This is gonna hurt," she said before she began to clean the area. He nodded, bracing himself before the alcohol hit his skin. She cringed on his behalf when he hissed and tensed with the pain, but she got it over with quickly for both of their sakes.

Her hands were still a little shaky, but her years of training had kicked in by the time the wound was ready to be stitched. Before she got started, she looked up at him and asked, "Do I want to know the story behind all of this?"

"Probably not," he replied. "By the way, your kicks are getting better."

She grimaced and shook her head. "I'm so sorry. You were already beat to hell and then I just made it worse..."

"It's okay. I should have expected it," he said, his head lying on a pillow propped against the arm of the couch. "Next time I'll say something first."

Threading the first stitch into his skin, he clenched his jaw and bit back a groan of pain. She tried to focus entirely on her task as she replied, "Next time? Please don't make a habit out of this."

"Trust me, I don't want to," he replied, voice tense with pain. "I feel guilty enough for showing up like this."

She opened her mouth to reply, but then her black and white cat jumping on to the back of the couch and rather haughtily eyeing her guest stole her attention. "Oreo, down," she hissed, and the cat merely glanced at her before unenthusiastically hopping back down.

"Oreo?" he asked.

"Yeah... she's black and white, like an Oreo," she replied, continuing to stitch the wound. "She's very cute. I found her as a kitty behind my old building. She was starving and giving me the biggest, sweetest eyes you can imagine."

"So you like to take in strays," he noted, perhaps as grateful for the distracting small talk as she was.

"Yeah, well... you kinda do too," she pointed out. "You took me in when I was the equivalent of a terrified kitten."

"You weren't a stray," he said, smiling faintly though it was tense. "You were an old crush from college. Easy choice."

She was about to reply when his words hit her and she froze for just a fraction of a second. Her eyes snapped up to his, fingers briefly stilling in their work. He blinked, eyes cast towards the ceiling and remaining silent as she wondered if he'd meant to say what he had, or if it had just slipped out.

"Um..." she muttered quietly, looking back down to his side. "I... didn't know I was an... 'old crush'."

"Really? I've been told I was pretty obvious back then," he replied, tone forcibly light, like maybe he hadn't meant to let that slip out so casually and was now trying to play it off.

... _Had_ he been obvious? She could honestly remember no signs of a crush on his part, nothing beyond normal friendliness between two people who shared a few of the same classes. He had always been sweet, yes, and charming beyond what should have been legal, but... was she _that_ blind?

"I thought you and that Greek girl were a thing back then," she replied, feeling her face start to heat up in a blush at the thought of him having wanted _her_ back then, when she'd never even suspected it.

"Didn't work out," he replied. "Obviously."

She smiled. "Obviously."

Suddenly, she was full of a million questions. Just how _much_ had he liked her back then? Did he still like her? If he did, and he could hear her heart race when he got too close...

And then, for the first time that night, the fact that he was half naked and lying only inches before her dawned on her in a completely non-medical way. The stitches were almost finished, and she knew that he really was in too much pain for her to be having the sort of thoughts suddenly engulfing her brain, but she couldn't help it.

"Why did you say I needed a real doctor?" he asked, unexpectedly changing the subject. "As if you aren't one?"

She sighed and frowned. "That was a little piece of my dad slipping out. It happens sometimes." After a beat, she added, "When I left law school for med school, he expected me to choose a specialty like obstetrics or internal medicine. When I told him I wanted to focus on mental health and be a psychiatrist, the first thing he said was 'You threw away your law career and you're not even going to be a real doctor?'"

She laughed softly at the memory, though it wasn't funny in the least. Matt paused before noting, "He's wrong."

She nodded, done with his stitches and cutting off the excess thread. "I know. Still manages to get in my head though. Just not nearly as much as before." She paused and sat back, looking over her work. "Okay, done. You're lucky the wound was superficial. You would have needed surgery if it wasn't."

"Yeah, lucky," he agreed, trying to sit up only for her to gently push him back down with a hand to his chest.

"Hey, hey, I don't think so. You've lost blood and you're beat to hell. You're staying on this couch."

"Yes, Doctor," he said, giving in and lying back down, grimacing a little as he did.

Her hand still on his chest, she looked down at it and then realized that she was letting it linger a little too long and pulled it away. She cleared her throat and took off the gloves she'd been wearing, telling him, "I'll find you some medicine. After that, you need to try to sleep."

He nodded, and she stood up to head out of the room. But then she felt his hand reach out and take her wrist, gently but firmly, and she looked down and felt her heart skip when she found his eyes fixed on her, almost like he was really looking at her. Then he said in a way that was so heartfelt and real that it made her heart skip _again_ , "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she replied quietly, the blush returning to her cheeks the longer she looked into his eyes and felt his skin warm on hers.

The moment lingered, just long enough for butterflies to start erupting in her belly. Then he made it all incredibly worse by observing, "You're blushing."

"... You shouldn't be able to know that," she replied with a small smile, voice suddenly a little shaky. His hand slipped down from her wrist, his fingers tangling with hers. "It's bad enough that you can hear my heart beating out of my chest."

He responded by taking her hand and pulling it down. She knelt back down to follow his lead, then watched as he placed her palm on his chest, over his heart, which was beating every bit as quickly as hers was.

"Now you feel mine," he said. She nearly lost her breath, her questions regarding his feelings for her now answered beyond a shadow of a doubt. She didn't move her hand, keeping it there and feeling the soft, quick flutters of his heart as his own hand moved slowly from hers to her face. He touched her cheek, thumb trailing along her cheekbone, and her eyes locked on to his. It didn't matter that he couldn't see her, because she knew he could _feel_ her on a level that transcended sight and made what was unfolding between them all the more special.

Then he said her name, somewhere between a whisper and a soft groan, and the sound made her ache inside. She leaned down slowly, his hand sliding into her curls and fingers touching the back of her neck, and her hand stayed splayed over his heart as her eyes fell shut. His did the same, and then she slowly touched her lips to his for the first time.

It was so soft, so gentle and tentative, and yet Siobhan felt like she'd been set on fire from just that first kiss. Their lips parted, and she opened her eyes to look down upon him for the one second that passed before his hand in her hair urged her back down. They kissed again, and this time, it was a long, deep, but no less sweet kiss.

In all of her 28 years, she'd never felt anything like it. To feel so much, so deeply, from just a kiss... it was brand new, and it was clear from the start that he felt just the same. His grip on her hair tightened as the kiss deepened, and the first time her lips parted and his tongue slipped inside, she let out a soft, breathy noise and moved her hand from his chest to his hair. She'd never been one to be very vocal with men in the past, but this kiss was unlike any of the ones she had experienced. Some had been good, a few bad, but _this_... this was unlike anything else she'd ever felt.

She was lost to the kiss, caught up in it like she'd been waiting for it for ages. It was long and slow, both of them savoring it and not wanting it to come to an end. It only did when he tried to angle himself closer to her and caused a sharp pain to shoot through his side, forcing him to break the kiss and catch his breath. She opened her eyes and looked him over, checking his stitches just to make sure they hadn't ripped, then cupping his cheek as she smiled quietly, "Sorry."

"Don't be," he replied, voice low and a little rough, causing a hot shiver to run through her veins. His fingers ran through her hair, all the way from the top to the ends of her curls that ended down at her waist, playing with the fiery strands, and she could only control herself for a moment before she leaned down and kissed him again.

This time, he was the one to groan and tug her closer, and just like before, she wished it didn't have to end. But eventually, after they stopped to take a breath, reality eventually came back around and reminded Siobhan of why it had to stop.

"You need to rest," she said, brushing his hair back off of his forehead. His eyes opened in her direction, and she added, "I don't think I'm helping much with that."

He grinned. "Probably not, but... I don't mind."

She smiled back and bit her lip, laying one more soft kiss upon him before slowly standing up. "I'm gonna go find the medicine. Be right back."

He nodded, letting her go a bit reluctantly. She headed to her bathroom with a stubborn smile on her face, her nerves alight and lips tingling with the memory of their kisses and how _amazing_ they had been. She had no idea what would happen tomorrow, or what the kisses would mean for the long run, and she felt too good to overthink it and ruin her high.

When she came back to her living room, she paused and smiled to find him asleep in the five minutes that she'd been gone. She left the medicine on her coffee table, in front of the couch, and then she found a blanket that she gently draped over him before leaving him to sleep in peace.

She fell asleep easy, in her own bed, after the long day and night that she'd had. She wasn't surprised to wake up in the morning and find him gone, thankfully having taken the medicine with him, and she knew that it was far from the last that she'd see of him.

* * *

A few nights later, surrounded by a few of her closest friends from work, Siobhan downed her third shot of the night in a small bar in the city and then set the empty glass on the table with both a grin and a grimace. She'd just gotten off of a long shift and she had the next day off, which was certainly an occasion to be celebrated, and nothing currently sounded better than toasting a rare day of freedom with a few shots.

"How can you drink this crap and _smile_ about it _?"_ Louise asked, only managing less than half of her shot before she put it down and then slid it to Siobhan. "I'm too old for this."

"You're never too old to drink, Louise," Siobhan retorted, taking the extra drink and slamming it. This time she grinned widely and said through a satisfied smile, "Man, that burns, doesn't it?"

A few of the other girls present chuckled their agreement and then another round was ordered, just as the buzz started to sink in and Siobhan felt the pleasant tingling in her fingertips. It had been entirely too long since she'd gotten tipsy and had fun, and as the night progressed and she and the girls laughed and drank to their heart's content, Siobhan almost managed to forget about the kiss that had been haunting her without fail since the moment it had happened.

 _Almost_. It was hard to forget about it when she glanced over her shoulder at one point to find the person she'd shared the kiss with sitting at the bar with his own friends, just _happening_ to be there at the same night and time as she was.

It was the first time she'd seen him since that night in her apartment. Normally they would have seen each other by then, for her fighting lessons at his place, but their schedules hadn't allowed it yet that week. The minute her eyes fell upon his profile, his head turned towards Foggy as he smiled and said something that made the other man laugh, her heart leapt in her chest and she felt like she'd just downed a shot of the bar's finest scotch. But she hadn't. She had only merely looked at a man who had wormed his way so deeply into her thoughts with seemingly minimal effort that it was starting to frighten her as much as it exhilarated her.

At first, she tried to turn her head back around and pretend that she hadn't seen him, and that it didn't matter anyway, and that she wasn't suddenly engulfed in the memory of what his lips had felt like pressed to hers, or how steadily and quickly his heart had raced for her under her fingertips.

But the thing was, it _did_ matter, and anyway, it was written all over her face.

Alicia, a fellow resident who had interned with Siobhan at the hospital, spotted her un-subtle staring and asked after nudging her ribs, "Who are you giving the eye to over there?"

"Nobody," Siobhan giggled, a little too loudly thanks to the alcohol buzzing through her veins. She didn't notice how the man she'd been giving _the eye_ to paused the minute she giggled, then fell silent and inclined his head in her direction as if trying to concentrate and perhaps identify the source of the fleeting sound he'd just heard.

"Uh huh," Louise chimed in. "So who is he?"

"Who?" Siobhan asked innocently.

Louise gestured towards Matt and asked, "Mister too-cool-to-take-off-my-sunglasses over there at the bar."

She rolled her eyes. "He's not too cool. He's _blind_."

"So you do know him?" Alicia laughed with amusedly accusing wide eyes, and Siobhan blushed before dropping her face into her palms and sighing. She'd never been that great of a liar, at least when it came to matters like these, and for some reason, something about this man in particular got to her on a level that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. It left her even less capable of competently bluffing.

Across the bar, her blush didn't go unnoticed by the man who was responsible for it.

* * *

Her laugh was the first thing that alerted him to her presence. It was airy, more carefree than he was used to hearing from her, and he could have recognized it anywhere, among a much larger crowd than the one present at the bar that night. Then, once he focused fully on her, her scent cut through the myriad of others present, a mix of her shampoo and a hint of the rather copious amounts of soap she used washing her hands constantly at the hospital, but most of all, her own distinct scent that was unique to her and her alone.

Maybe it wasn't fair that he could tell when she, in turn, noticed him and how she blushed when her friends teased her about it. Fair or not, he couldn't help but just barely smile to himself, fleetingly enough that Foggy didn't notice and inevitably ask what had him smirking all of a sudden.

He hadn't been avoiding her on purpose, but the distance over the last few days had been something of a necessary break following the kiss that had shaken things up between them. It hadn't exactly been surprising, given how the tension had been building and leading directly to a moment of that kind, but he hadn't expected it to feel as it had. He hadn't expected _anything_ to feel as it had when it came to her, and yet here they were, and he wasn't sure how to proceed.

But he did know what he wanted. What he didn't know was if it was unwise, irresponsible, or even reckless. He also didn't know what she wanted, though he knew full well by this point how deep of an effect that he had on her.

"Oh hey, Siobhan's over there," Foggy suddenly noticed, after ordering them another round. "Wow. Her hair's down. She really does look like the _Brave_ chick."

"She with anyone?" Matt asked, playing dumb. Or, more accurately, playing less super-powered, though he'd never use that term willingly.

"Just some friends," Foggy replied. "No dudes, in case _that's_ why you were asking."

Matt smiled but shrugged. "Just curious."

Foggy waved at her, and Siobhan waved back before turning to her friends and getting ready to come over. He then sighed, took a drink of his beer, and said, "Seriously, man. If there was a way to trade eyeballs with you for five minutes, this is one of the times I'd do it."

"You could, in a way," Matt replied, hearing Siobhan laugh again, across the room. "Describe her to me."

"Uh oh. You only ask me to do that if you're serious about someone. Have I missed something?"

Matt laughed it off. "You don't have to if you don't want to..."

"Oh no, I want to. Okay. So... first of all, she's wearing some very tight black pants and this kinda flowy blue blouse... thing. And knee high boots with high heels. And as for _her_ , you know about the crazy red hair already, but it's... some epic hair, not gonna lie. It's like this huge... mane of curls, all coarse and just... yeah, it's great. Then she's got blue eyes. She's pale. Well, _fair_ , I guess -"

"What kind of blue eyes?" Matt asked, and Foggy paused, looking at him with slightly wider eyes.

"Damn, you _do_ want the details. Light blue. Maybe... sky blue? I'd need to look again. But yeah... very nice. And she's short, but you already know that. How detailed do you want me to get about the rest of her, because..."

"Respectfully detailed," Matt grinned.

Foggy rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Okay. Then I guess I'd have to say she's... thin, but not too thin, and... well... petite, but... very... um... _womanly_."

"Womanly," Matt repeated, amused.

"Look, I don't know how else to say respectfully that she's got a slammin' body," Foggy laughed, taking another drink, then half-sputtering and saying, "She's coming over now."

Matt already knew that, of course. He was listening to her footsteps get closer and breathing her in as her scent grew nearer, and he could smell whiskey and something a little sweeter on her lips as she came up beside him at the bar and said with a clear smile in her voice, "Hey guys."

He smiled in her direction and let Foggy get his own greeting in first. "Hey! Not to sound like a walking cliche, but what the hell's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Oh, well, cheap drinks and convenient location, I guess," she laughed softly in reply. Matt liked her voice. It was feminine but not too soft or sweet, and it was easy to tell with her through her voice when she was smiling or when she was amused. "Me and some friends from work have tomorrow off, so it's a rare opportunity to _really_ drink."

"Good to know you don't 'drink and doctor'," Matt remarked, and she chuckled again.

"Oh no. Not me."

"What're you drinking?" Foggy asked, eyeing past her to the other girls back at her table. "You ladies look like the respectable cocktail types."

Siobhan's answering scoff made Matt smile. "Yeah, no. If I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna _drink_. It's a whiskey night. I got a whole bottle of the good Irish stuff."

"How many shots are you good for?" Foggy asked curiously. "You're pretty tiny, so what... maybe like... five?"

" _Five_?" She repeated like she was offended. "Are you kidding me? My grandma would roll over in her grave if I was that much of a lightweight!"

"Okay, okay!" Foggy said, hands up in surrender. "I should know better than to question the most Irish person I know on their drinking skills."

"Damn right," she replied, and Matt could hear the grin in her voice. "So, how long are you guys hanging out here?"

"Not much longer," Matt replied. "You?"

"Well... I don't know," she said, and when she glanced back towards her table and smiled at the girls, a stray lock of her hair brushed Matt's arm and sent an unexpected chill down his spine. She turned back and added, "I like my friends and all, but... not really feeling the company tonight, you know?"

"Well, we _are_ infinitely better - just look at us," Foggy said, waving an arm over himself and Matt. "Coolest defense attorneys in the city."

Siobhan laughed, and Matt said, "Even _I_ can see that's not true."

Siobhan laughed again, a little harder, and Matt decided that he could listen to her laugh all day. She was like a breath of fresh air and yet terrifying at the same time, because she knew his secrets and she also made him feel the way no other woman had in a long time. Having her so close but still so far away, everything about her flooding his senses and tempting him to reach out and touch her even though he shouldn't...

She ended up saving him the trouble and touched him first, gently tapping the tie around his neck and then giving it a slight, playful tug. "Well, you guys _do_ look good. I'd hire you."

"You already did," Matt pointed out as her hand slipped away.

"Oh yeah," she smiled, giving her hair a small flip and unknowingly overwhelming him with the scent of it. "And I plan on keeping you guys on speed dial just in case. If I get a ticket or something, would you guys help me take care of it?"

"We'll help you with almost literally anything," Foggy replied, fully sincere and a little tipsy now himself. "Like, you name it, and if it's even vaguely law-related, we're there." Then there was the sound of Foggy's phone ringing in his pocket, and as he fetched it, he got up from the bar and said, "Oh, sorry. I'll be right back."

Matt and Siobhan both nodded, and when Foggy stepped away to answer the call, Matt found himself secretly relieved that now he had a moment mostly alone with her. He turned his face her direction, and after taking a second to focus, heard her heart speed up just by a few beats. She was nervous.

"How's your side?" she asked quietly.

"Better," he replied, nodding. "Getting easier to ignore now."

"Good," she replied. "I'd offer to take a look at it, but... now might not be the best place."

"Yeah. You could come check it out later, at at my place. Or yours. Wherever you'd prefer trying to get my clothes off." He kept a straight face, but _damn_ was it hard not to grin when he heard her heart thud and breath hitch at those words.

Once she gathered her wits, she replied, "You know, you're not the first to use an injury to try to flirt with me."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Happens all the time with my patients. Never works."

"Good thing I'm not a patient then," he replied, smiling a little.

"Maybe you should be," she teased. "Wanna know my office hours?"

His smile grew. "I'd rather take you to dinner one of these days."

He could feel her blush, the heat rising in her cheeks as she looked away smiling. When she turned back to him, she said, "You know, I figured that a guy like you, who has secrets and a double life that's... well, incredibly dangerous, wouldn't want to get close to anyone."

"I shouldn't," he admitted. "I'm sure you can imagine all the reasons why."

"Yeah," she said softly, understanding.

"But I think I kind of screwed that up already," he said, smiling again, and it was true. He'd crossed that bridge a long time ago. The weeks that she'd spent in his apartment, first staying there for her own safety and then after she left, coming over a couple times a week learning how to fight and defend herself... he hadn't meant to, but he'd gotten closer to her than he'd gotten to any woman in recent memory, in every sense aside from the physical.

Siobhan was trying to figure out a way to answer him when Foggy reappeared at Matt's side, unintentionally shattering the moment. "Sorry about that. That was Karen. We need to go."

Matt nodded, and within just a moment or two, Foggy had paid the bartender and they were ready to go. Matt turned towards Siobhan once he was back on his feet, and she stood up as well, placing them a little closer to each other than he'd anticipated.

Foggy told her goodbye first, and after she replied in her usual lighthearted, friendly way, Matt smiled and told her in a more quiet, serious tone, "Bye, Siobhan."

"Bye," she replied, equally quietly. Then she surprised them both, and he didn't know if it was the whiskey she'd been drinking or not, but she leaned up on her toes and gave him a quick but sweet kiss on his cheek. Then she lingered for just a fraction of a second, and then she was walking away, taking her scent and the sound of her fluttery heart with her, as his cheek tingled with just that one little innocent touch upon it.

Once she was a safe distance away, Foggy said, "Okay. I _definitely_ missed something."

Matt fought a grin, walking stick in hand as he turned and started heading for the door. Foggy, walking alongside him, went on, "Seriously. You might not be able to see the way that she just looked at you, but _whoa_. And that kiss on the cheek? Are you guys a _thing,_ and if you are, why haven't you told me?"

He laughed. "There's nothing to tell."

"Oh please. I saw it with my own eyes. She looked at you like..."

"Like what?" Matt asked as they walked outside, leaving the bar and stepping into the chilly outside night air.

"Like she really, _really_ likes you," Foggy replied.

Matt stayed silent for a moment, wishing he could see her face for himself, see the way that she looked at him and see her as others could. This gave Foggy the chance to then say, "And _you_ have that look you get when _you_ really like someone, too!"

Matt laughed again. "What's not to like about her?"

Foggy scoffed. "I swear, you're as evasive as a..."

"A what?"

"A lawyer!"

Both men laughed and continued on their way down the street, only one of them wondering underneath his outside facade if he should give in to what he wanted or run the other way, to keep Siobhan safe. He got the feeling, though, that if he did run, she'd be on his heels regardless.

Sooner or later, they'd both have to make a decision. For his own sake, he hoped it was the former rather than the latter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you guys so much for following this story and your reviews and favorites :D it means a lot to me and the reviews make my day, they really do :D only one more chapter to go after this one! As I mentioned before this is probably my favorite chapter and it was fun to write lol, so I hope you guys like it! Let me know what you think! :D**

He never did get around to asking her out to dinner, but she understood why. Things in the city weren't getting any better, and while she was on the outside and not exactly in the loop of his night time activities, Siobhan wasn't hurt by how absent Matt became over the following month.

But they didn't lose touch entirely, and because of that, she knew that the big bad guy he was fighting both day and night was apparently named Wilson Fisk. She only found that out after she saw him on TV out of nowhere looking like a man with nothing but the city's best interests at heart, then dropped by Matt's office later that day to find him rather depressed with that new development. One or two quiet conversations later, she found out just how dangerous Matt's after hours crusades truly were. She'd always known that it was bad, but only then did the true depth of what he'd gotten himself into dawn on her.

It was then that she got to thinking what it meant for the future, and what it meant for Matt specifically. Being trained and constantly learning in the field of mental health, he was a case study begging to be written, and really, the common sense answer for her would have been to keep her distance. Besides, how long could a man like him - crazy ninja-training and heightened senses aside - expect to do what he was doing and keep living? It was a statistical near-impossibility, and that should have been enough for her to decide that he wasn't worth the inevitable pain that becoming involved with him would eventually bring. Any other woman in her position would have realized that and kept her distance, and unbeknownst to her, one woman did.

In her head, she knew all of those things were true. But, cliched as it was, her heart told her something different. Utterly shameful for a woman of her profession, she thought, but what else could she do?

Then a day came where she bumped into Foggy on the street alone, on one of her precious days off. He seemed distraught, distracted and evasive, and it wasn't hard for her to piece together from his vague explanations that something had happened between himself and Matt. It might not have been any of her business, but ever since they'd helped to protect her from a dirty cop bent on offing her, they'd both grown to become real friends rather than just old, mostly forgotten college buddies. Foggy didn't even know that Matt had become a teacher to her, helping her to feel safe in her own abilities to defend herself whenever she walked the streets.

And so, it was for all those reasons that, after a day spent running the mundane sorts of personal errands that unfortunately always took up her days off, Siobhan decided to pay Matt a visit at his place. The chances of him being home after dark that particular night didn't seem especially high, but she wanted to at least try.

Throwing on an actual dress for once and letting her hair stay down rather than tying it up on top of her head seemed like logical choices at the time. She didn't let herself overthink it, knowing she'd feel silly or presumptuous or maybe even a little desperate if she did. Besides, it was just a dress and her hair. It wasn't like he was going to _see_ her, and anyway, that wasn't the point of her visit. She just wanted to see him, talk to him, and make sure that he was okay.

Her mother had taught her as a teenager that one never showed up to someone else's home empty handed, so on her way to his place, she grabbed a bottle of red wine that cost enough to make her have to check her bank account balance on her phone before buying it. But one couldn't show up at the door of a man with the sense of super-taste holding a bottle of sub-par wine that he'd taste every last mediocre, bitter note of.

Instead, she showed up at his door with a bottle that she was still internally panicking over the price of and wearing a smile that he couldn't see when he opened the door following her soft knock. Her eyes raked over him the minute the door opened, over his casual black t shirt and pants, slightly messy hair, eyes open and unguarded, cast downwards between them.

She opened her mouth to say hi. He beat her to it.

"Siobhan," he said as a greeting, lips quirking up in what was almost a smile.

She narrowed her eyes even as her heart flipped briefly in her chest. "Seriously?"

This time, he really did smile. "I'd say that I could smell you before you even knocked, but... there isn't really a way of saying that that isn't creepy."

She blinked and felt her cheeks flush, already blushing and she hadn't even stepped inside yet. "Yeah... I, um... I'm not sure if I should be offended, or..."

"No," he half-chuckled, stepping aside and opening the door wider to let her in. "Trust me. I mean it in the best way."

She let out a breath as she walked into his apartment, replying, "Good, because I was about to go bathe in a bunch of perfume and then come back."

"I've known girls who do that," he said, closing the door and then following her. "Gives me a headache. They walk by and I can basically taste it."

She gave him a look and said, "I can't even imagine the things you've smelled in your lifetime. And heard." She paused. "And tasted."

"I've got some stories," he admitted, and she smiled as she glanced down at the bottle of wine in her hand.

"Well, I brought wine. Good wine. Maybe you could tell me some of those stories after I pour us some."

She then turned to head into his kitchen, and he followed her slowly from behind. "Is that what you came here for? Stories?"

"No," she replied lightly, setting down the bottle of wine on his counter and looking around for a corkscrew. "I came here because I ran into Foggy today and I got the feeling that you might need a friend right now."

He lingered near the outer part of the small kitchen, leaning there as she continued her search for the elusive bottle opener. "Oh."

She glanced at him over her shoulder, seeing his previous casual facade fading into the sad, regretful expression that looked a lot more authentic. "Judging by how he was acting and what he said... well, more like what he didn't say... I'm guessing he knows."

"Yeah," he replied quietly. "He knows."

By now, she had at last found a corkscrew and successfully opened the wine. She began looking through his cabinets for two glasses as she replied, "On a scale of one to ten, how bad?"

"Pretty bad," he replied. "But I can't blame him."

"Me either," she said, pouring the wine into the two best glasses she could find. Then she turned and walked his way, handing one of the drinks to him.

He took the glass and asked, "Are you here to talk me out of it, too?"

"By 'it' do you mean your vigilante hobby that's already almost gotten you killed a couple times?" she asked, eyeing the always-presents cuts and bruises on his person. She could see a handful on his arms, one or two on his face. She wondered what kind of lame excuses he gave people whom he had to keep up the charade with.

"Yeah, that," he replied.

Standing opposite him, a safe but short distance away, she took a drink of the wine and found it worth the steep price. Then she thought for a moment and said, "No. I'm not here to talk you out of it. It's not like you'd listen anyway if I tried."

He couldn't seem to find much of a retort for that. He began to drink his own wine as she added, "I think that you need to do what you're doing. I can't imagine being in your shoes and having this... burden on me, the way that you do. You'll _probably_ get yourself killed one of these days, but... maybe you won't. Either way, I can't tell you to stop. I won't tell you to."

Lowering the glass from his lips, he murmured, "Why not?"

She took another drink, pondering her answer. "Well... to put it bluntly, we live in a fucked up world. There's aliens and superheroes and _gods_ that fly around with their magic hammers but this city still sucks. The world still sucks. I think it's people like you who can really make the difference for all the 'little people'."

"When you say people like me, do you mean lawyers or vigilantes?" he asked, too surprised by what she was saying to crack a joke or play any of it off.

"Both," she shrugged. "But mainly I mean people who care and will stand up against ridiculous odds to make a difference. Good people."

She could tell that he needed to hear what she was saying, maybe now more than ever. "I don't always feel like I'm a very good person."

"Doesn't mean you aren't one," she replied, not lacking one ounce of conviction. "Besides, if that was true, you wouldn't feel so guilty about lying to your best friend."

He nodded, falling silent as he swirled the remaining wine in his glass around. She finished hers, then watched him as he lifted his head a few inches and said, "You know, when you first found out a couple months ago, I thought you'd react the same way he did."

She smiled and shrugged. "I probably should have. You must think I'm the worst psychiatrist in New York."

"No," he shook his head. "But definitely the most interesting."

She rolled her eyes and chuckled softly. He smiled for a moment and then finished off his wine, which was when she stepped forward to take the empty glass out of his hand. Her fingers brushed his in the process, and she wondered if he felt the same instant electric current that she did.

Trying to keep herself steady and not let her head get away from her, she headed back towards the counter that the wine bottle was sitting on, intending to refill the glasses. Halfway there, she heard him note quietly, "You're wearing a dress tonight."

She stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder incredulously. "And how can you tell _that_?"

He grinned, gesturing briefly with his hand. "It's the way the fabric brushes against your legs when you walk."

Walking the rest of the way to the counter, she looked away and set the glasses down and said, "... Okay. Makes sense, I guess. You can't tell what kind of underwear I have on, can you?"

"No," he replied casually, soundlessly and slowly walking towards her as she kept her eyes on her task. " _That_ I'd have to find out the old fashioned way."

Her hand paused wrapped around the bottle, her eyes closing and her skin shivering a little just from that one teasing remark. Then her eyes opened when she sensed him behind her, not touching her but only inches away, and her heart started pounding.

She was doomed. He hadn't even touched her, and she was already broadcasting to his overly sensitive ears how very desperate she was for him.

Wine all but forgotten, her hand slipped away from the bottle when he reached out and touched the little bow on the back of her dress. "Can you describe it to me?"

"My dress?" she asked, tingling with his proximity and the feeling that she had of where this might be going.

"Yeah."

She didn't turn around, and he stepped a little closer to her as she replied, "Well, it's dark blue. Looks good with my hair. Just above knee length." He placed his hand gently on her upper arm, her skin there bare and immediately erupting into goosebumps at his touch. She swallowed and went on, "Short sleeves. A _little_ bit of a low neckline, but nothing too crazy."

His fingers trailed up her arm, along the edge of her sleeves and then along her neckline, as if to test the truth of what she was telling him. He stopped before he got anywhere too scandalous, sliding his fingers back up towards her shoulder as she forced herself to breathe and finish.

"Lace trim on the bottom and on the sleeves. And a little tie that ties in the back into that bow you touched a minute ago."

"Sounds beautiful," he murmured, lips somewhere near the crown of her head. His fingertips brushed against her neck after they left her shoulder, then slid down into her curls that cascaded down her back. He ran his fingers all the way to the ends of her hair, down at her waist, and then they were back at her neck, brushing her hair aside as he took the final step closer, so that he was softly pressed against her.

Her eyes having fallen shut again, her hands gripped the counter as he bent his head down and, rather than kiss her neck or her ear, he inhaled the scent of her skin and her hair. One of his hands ended up planted next to hers on the counter, partially caging her in against it as she dipped her head to the side, welcoming his touch and encouraging more. But he didn't give her more just yet, instead only just brushing his lips across her ear as he murmured, "Stop me if you don't want this."

"You can _hear_ how much I want this," she pointed out, voice coming out a bit strained. Her eyes opened when his lips left her ear, and she turned around when she began to fear that he was about to leave her.

But he wasn't going anywhere. Now facing one another, Siobhan reached out and touched him, sliding her hands up his chest until they were on his shoulders. She slid up closer to him, eliminating the tiny space between them, and when his hands went to her hips, she leaned up to kiss him for the first time since that first kiss on her couch a month earlier.

She kissed him softly, gently and sweetly, but the kiss only stayed that way for a very brief few seconds. Her fingers buried themselves in his hair and his fingers curled tightly, possessively around her hips, and she pressed them against his. His pants were thin and so was her dress, making the slight friction of her hips more pronounced, though she had the feeling that he would have felt it through five layers of much thicker clothing. It made her head spin to think just how sensitive he must have been to every last little touch.

She opened her eyes when he pulled his lips away, only for a second or two. She looked into his eyes, no less heated than any seeing ones would have been, and felt his hands leave her hips so that they could cradle her face instead. Then he leaned her head back, angling it just how he wanted, and her eyes closed as he kissed her in a way that she could truthfully say she'd never been kissed before.

It was passionate, _consuming_ , and she hadn't known that a kiss could even _be_ like that, so deep and so fiery that she could feel it in her bones, _feel_ the claim that he was laying on her through his kiss. He stole her breath away, gently but firmly pushing her against the counter until he had her pinned there with nowhere to go but closer to him, and that was exactly where she went.

His hands were everywhere, his tongue dancing with hers and leaving her breathless with every careful and hot brush and flick of it in her mouth, and just when she thought she might explode from it all, his hands suddenly seized her hips and lifted her up on to the counter. She hit their empty wine glasses, sending one shattering to the floor, but they barely noticed it. Her legs immediately opened for him to stand between them, and he was on her in a heartbeat, kissing her again now that they were at perfect eye level. One of his hands buried in her hair and the other holding her body tightly against his, Siobhan grasped a handful of hair at the back of his head and let her other roam down his back, across his shoulders, feeling him through his shirt and trying not to whimper but finding it nearly impossible with how he was kissing her and holding her.

She barely realized how she'd been grinding herself against him until he broke the kiss with a low, faint groan, breathing heavily and resting his forehead against hers. She opened her eyes, stroking her fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck, holding herself still as she shifted to kiss his temple and his cheekbone during the calm in the storm.

"Don't stop," she said near his ear, meaning it with every fiber of her being and punctuating her words with tugs on his shirt. " _Please_ , Matt..."

She'd never been one to beg, but... she'd also also never quite felt the way that she did before, and she wanted, _needed_ , more.

"I'm not," he assured her, voice low and rough with need as his hand in her hair curled around the back of her head and pulled her in for another consuming kiss.

It was in the midst of those hot, nearly frantic kisses that one of his hands trailed up her leg, underneath the hem of her dress. His hand moved up and down her thigh, inching higher and higher each time as they kissed, until finally his thumb grazed a lacy, silky corner of her underwear. He didn't move the thumb away, teasing along her inner thigh and the edge of the panties as he broke the kiss to let her catch her breath. She panted as his lips moved to her neck, making her shiver and close her eyes as her fingers clung to his hair.

He was so good at what he was doing, driving her crazy and making her act in a way that she'd never acted before with anyone else, and they hadn't even dropped a single article of clothing yet.

He effortlessly found a place just under her ear, her most sensitive inch of skin on her neck, and he kissed and suckled at it mercilessly. She couldn't help her reaction, pulling his hair a little bit, gently, and rolling her hips forward. She happened to catch his still-teasing thumb when she did, and the resulting little half-accidental flick of it somewhere _very_ tender made her gasp and jerk a little.

Her eyes flew open, and his lips departed from her neck. His hands didn't move and neither did hers, but she lost her breath when she saw the heated, dark look on his face. He looked like he was ready to devour her, and it turned out that he _was_ , if the way that he pulled her off of the counter, let her legs wrap around his waist and started walking them to his bedroom was any indication.

She kissed him the whole way there, and he never once came close to bumping her or himself into anything or accidentally hitting a wall. He knew exactly where he was going, and she trusted him in every way that she possibly could. She'd never trusted anyone so wholly or so implicitly before, and it made every single touch and kiss all the more special.

Once they were inside of his room, he carried her until they reached the foot of the bed. Then he set her down on her feet, their kiss breaking and Siobhan's eyes opening, her fingers leaving his hair and tracing down the light scruff on his face. They only lingered there for a moment before she glanced up at his eyes, then leaned closer to kiss his neck while her hands began to wander.

She kept her kisses and her touches soft, not wanting to overwhelm him. His fingers were still buried in her hair, keeping the curls away from her face, and her hand slipped down to his waist, sliding up under his shirt to his side, over the old wound that she'd once stitched for him as he laid bleeding on her couch. She pulled her lips away from his neck, her hand lifting his shirt as she looked down and traced her fingertips over the mark left by the wound.

She'd done a good job with it, but it was fading into a scar that would stay with him forever. She lifted his shirt higher, until her palm was sliding over his chest, and she saw newer, still-healing bruises and marks littering his torso. A few had been sewn up, and she was about to ask who had done it for him when she felt a finger under her chin urging her up, so that he could kiss her again and make her forget what she'd been wondering in the first place.

Lost again in the high of kissing him the way that she was, unrestrained and passionate without a single other care in the world, she broke away only to pull his shirt over his head. Once it was off and on the floor, she pulled him closer and kissed him again, his skin hot under her careful fingertips and his lips urgent against hers as his hands grasped at the hem of her dress.

He yanked up the bottom of her dress, quickly but not harshly, and she obediently leaned back and lifted her arms as he took the dress off of her. After that, it was like he couldn't get his hands on her quickly or fully enough, taking her and slowly laying her down in his bed while he kissed down her throat. She went without protest, lying back with her head on his pillow, her hair spreading in a wild mane underneath her, on top of the sheets. He was right there with her, on top of her and looking wrecked already.

His hair was a mess, faced flushed and body tense with desire, but he patiently began slowly taking off the last few things she wore rather than devouring her like he visibly wanted to. He started with her bra, which she helped him get off after his fingers had no trouble sliding underneath her back and getting the clasp undone. Next came her underwear, which he slowly traced the lace patterns of with his fingertips, kissing lazily down her collarbone as he painted a picture of the fabric in his mind.

"They're black," she said quietly, hands running up and down his upper back, fingers occasionally carding through his hair. "I thought since you can't see them, they could feel nice to you instead."

He raised his head then, lips quirking and eyes cast somewhere towards her mouth as he remarked, "You wore them for me?"

"Just in case this is how the night went," she explained. "I hoped it would."

He kissed her softly following her admission, fingers slowly tugging down her underwear and slipping them from her legs. "I'm glad you came here tonight."

"I can tell," she grinned before pulling him back down and kissing him again, hungry for more and trying to get back to the fast, desperate pace of before. But he had other plans.

He took her hands and gently pulled his mouth away from hers, then laid her hands up above her head. She watched him, her breath a little labored already and body bare before him, as he brought a hand to her face and began to slowly trace her features.

He started with her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone to her ear, then softly trailing down her jaw. He reached her chin, and then ran two of his fingertips over her lips. She parted them, eyes locked on his face as he first memorized her lower lip, then her upper lip and the lower one again, pulling it down slightly as he dragged his fingers down. Then he was touching her face with both hands, gently and innocently tracing each new feature.

She giggled softly when his fingertip ran down the tip of her nose, and he smiled back in a way that made her heart melt. Then he kissed her again, and it started out slow and sweet before the fire returned and things took another turn for the frantic. But then he was hitting the brakes again, breaking away and taking his detailed exploration of her further down.

She'd never been so thoroughly touched and learned in all of her days, and had never known a man so patient and determined to truly see her without sight. He ran his fingers everywhere, down her shoulders and her arms, her hands and her own fingers, then back up again. He kissed her all the while, first on her neck and collarbone while his hand brushed down over her breast for the first time. Her breath hitched, and he took his time in touching and squeezing the soft flesh. Each one fit his hand just right, the perfect size and firmness, and his mouth followed his fingers soon thereafter.

That was when she moaned for the first time that night. It was quiet and breathy and accidental, but she couldn't help herself. He was stoking her fire and teasing her, licking and suckling at one nipple while his fingers teased the other, and she wondered just how loudly her heartbeat was thundering in his ear. Surely he could feel her blood pumping, rushing through her veins and making her throb, impatient but not daring to rush him along.

Next, his attention went further south, to her stomach and her hips and her legs. His hands felt and memorized every last inch, all the way from her feet to the top of her thighs, and his mouth kissed and nipped at places she didn't even know would make her shiver and writhe until he touched them.

And then, just as she was on the verge of losing her mind and begging him incoherently for more, his lips were back on hers and he was on top of her once more, his hand sliding up her inner thigh as his tongue played with hers. She whimpered again, so softly she could barely hear herself, though she knew he would have no problem hearing even her most quiet sounds.

Then he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers, and she gasped softly as his fingers finally found her and sent a wave of pleasure jolting through her body. She held on to him tightly, legs falling further open and hips softly rocking up to meet his touch. He kissed her again and then dropped his mouth to her ear, where his voice came out as a rough half-whisper, saying her name and making her pleasure increase so much and so fast that it made her head spin.

He could sense this, of course, and could hear and feel every last sign and tell that she had in her. He kissed her cheekbone, fingers picking up the pace just like she wanted but was too compromised to say, then murmured against her skin, "You like my voice."

She tried to say _yes_ but whimpered again instead, because everything he was doing was _perfect_ and this had been building for so long, like she'd been waiting forever for this night and hadn't even known it. It felt so right, so _real_ and like they truly fit, which wasn't something she'd ever experienced with anyone else.

"You feel amazing," he told her, barely above a whisper but more than enough to make her shiver and sink her nails into his back, as softly as she possibly could. "You're so wet... I can feel you getting hotter."

His words and his voice were gasoline on the fire, and she found herself suddenly so close to the edge that it took even her by surprise. She closed her eyes and clutched at his hair, holding on tight and welcoming her end. But then he stopped - he _stopped_ , just at the perfect moment - and she opened her eyes, a soft, desperate whine escaping her lips.

He merely kissed her to hush her, just once, and then dropped his lips to her throat and dragged them down as he slid his way down her body. He didn't drag it out or tease her, wasting little time in settling between her legs and kissing her inner thigh. He placed one leg over his shoulder, and she kept her eyes on him and shivered in anticipation as he hotly kissed his way to her center.

Once he was _there_ , she dropped her head to the pillow and arched her back, her movements as beyond her control as her voice, which again left her mouth in soft, shaky whimpers and moans. She turned her face into her pillow, one hand clutching it and the other ending up mindlessly and desperately holding on to his hair as she began moving erratically under the onslaught of pleasure she somehow hadn't been prepared for. He moved one arm over her belly and held her still effortlessly, then devoured her with renewed zeal. Later she would wonder what in the world had come over her to have lost control of herself to be held down in such a way, as it had certainly never happened before.

But none of that mattered or even existed in that moment, and when her end finally came and hit her with a force that sent her reeling and seeing stars, it felt like she'd left reality entirely for a moment and was tethered to the Earth by only the man gently easing her through it. It was _perfect_ , mind-blowing, earth-shaking and every other cliched description that still couldn't seem to really do justice to how exquisite it truly was.

He didn't let her recover alone. Instead, he gently eased her leg from his shoulder, laying the then-limp limb back on the bed, then crawled back up to her side. She opened her eyes, blinking away the daze she was still in, feeling her heart start to ache inside when she saw the look on his face.

He seemed dazed himself, flushed and heavy-lidded and clearly in need of attention himself, but it wasn't just that. It was more. It was the way that he looked at her, the soft but burning intensity in his brown eyes, the affection there and the fact that he was looking at her like she had always wished a man would. And he couldn't even see her.

She closed her eyes when he leaned in and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to her lips, her heart leaping in her chest and serving as a warning. The warning was clear and undeniable, and not nearly as terrifying as it should have been.

She might just fall in love with this man.

* * *

He might just fall in love with this woman.

It was too early to know, of course, and he tried to push the thought away as soon as it had entered his mind as they kissed. But it was hard to ignore when he heard the way that her heart thumped as his lips touched hers, and even harder to deny when her soft little giggle interrupted the kiss just after he'd teasingly flicked the tip of his tongue against hers.

"What?" he smiled, finding a strand of particularly curly hair at her temple and twirling it through his fingers. He _loved_ her hair. He was fairly sure that he could play with it all night and not get bored.

She shook her head and stifled her last giggle, one of her hands running down his side. "Nothing, just... how the hell do you still have your pants on?"

His lips curled into a smirk and he replied, "Guess you've been neglecting me."

She feigned a gasp of offense, making his smile grow, and then both of her hands were slipping into the waistband of his pants as she said, "Well, in my defense... I've been busy trying not to scream and wake up all your neighbors."

He grinned, well aware of that. But she hadn't screamed. Instead, she'd been all breathy pants and silent screams, quiet but potent moans that had driven him crazy and sounded absolutely perfect to his enhanced ears. Now she was back in control of herself - mostly - and sliding his pants down from his hips, kissing him and shifting them so that he was moving to lay on his back while she climbed on top of him. She got rid of his clothes first, finally placing them on equal terms, and then... _then_ she was on him, straddling his hips, her hands planted on his chest.

He held her hips as she touched the array of marks and bruises on his chest, palms moving up and down her soft skin as she examined his much more battered flesh.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said quietly, leaning down closer to him. Her hair fell around her like fiery curtains, their ends tickling him more the closer she got. "And some of these still look pretty painful."

"I'm fine," he assured her, hands sliding up her waist and over her sides to her back before urging her closer. "I'm fine. _Please_ , Siobhan."

She couldn't resist _that_. She lowered herself down and kissed him, her chest pressed to his and her hair wild as it enveloped them both. He felt surrounded by her, drowning in her scent and her warmth and everything about her, and he _loved_ it. The world outside felt like it was a million miles away for once, leaving him alone and letting him escape it all for one night with a woman that made the reprieve even sweeter.

Her skin was soft and prone to breaking out in goosebumps at certain touches, and he could feel each little individual bump under his fingertips when it would happen. Her lips were equally soft and full, shaped perfectly and the sweetest thing he'd tasted in a long time. Their closest competition was a different part of her, one that had proven to be every bit as sweet and delicious as he had known it would be even before he'd even given it a taste.

Now she was exploring _him_ , and he trusted her to do as she pleased with him. She kissed him softly and thoroughly, giving his lower lip a gentle little tug with her teeth before she pulled away and then gave his neck her attention. She didn't linger there long, however, being on a mission to return the pleasure he'd given her and soon making her way to his chest. She touched him and kissed him there carefully, avoiding the still-healing marks on his flesh, and every kiss and every press of her fingers to his skin was a small little shock of electricity to his nerves. She traced the hard lines of his abdomen with her tongue, making his eyes close and heat slither down below, and the tightening of his hand in her hair seemed to give a hint of how badly he needed her.

Almost teasingly, she slowly kissed her way back up his body, then raised her head and flipped her hair out of her face. He felt the motion and wished that he could have seen it, watched her wild hair fly as she arched her back and slid her hand down his body just as she kissed him again, with a fury this time.

Her tongue was in his mouth when her hand wrapped around him, and he broke the kiss with a barely audible but sharp intake of air as soon as he felt it. Then she was moving her hand, slowly at first but a little bit faster with each new stroke, and he knew that she was watching his face as she touched him. Then, her rhythm set, she kissed his lips one more time before dropping hers to his neck, every slide and drag of her skin against his feeling like fire and leaving him breathless underneath her.

But she didn't want to get him too close, so eventually, after he'd begun to groan softly and thrust into her hand, she pulled it away and resettled herself on him, so that she was kissing him again and _so_ close to taking him in that only one small shift of her hips would place him inside of her. His hands were all over her, one buried in the mess of her hair and the other pressed on the small of her back as she kissed him senseless, and it was his desperation that pushed him to flip them over.

She welcomed the change of position, and once he was on top of her, her legs wrapped around his hips and pulled them down to hers, holding them there tightly. She was stronger physically than she used to be, before he'd taught her how to defend herself, but she was still soft and pliant under his hands. She trusted him, and he trusted her just the same. It was an _amazing_ feeling.

He kissed her, dragging it all out just a little bit longer, savoring and committing to memory what every inch of them pressed together felt like. She was so _hot_ , literally burning up, her skin feeling like fire and her heart beat drumming harder the longer he made her wait.

But he couldn't make her, or himself, wait forever. Finally, with one arm holding himself up and the other holding one of her legs, angling her so that they were perfectly aligned, he pushed forward and brought the waiting to an end. She immediately gasped and held on tighter to him, and his senses overloaded, leaving him unsure as to why she tensed and held on to him like her life depended on it.

"You okay?" he asked, barely getting the words out as he forced himself to hold still, just for a moment.

"Yes," she breathed, nodding furiously. " _Yes_. Please don't stop."

He listened to her breathing, her stammering heart, her shaky voice as she pled with him, and now that he'd gotten some of his head back, he knew that she was as tense as she was because she wanted him so badly that she was trembling a little. She was tight too, _incredibly_ tight, and he had to wonder how long it had been since she'd last been with a man.

His hand moved to her face, tracing her features softy and then cradling it as he kissed her and began to move. It was slow, languid, almost lazy, and it built slowly and steadily as they moved together and held each other close through those first sweet moments. She relaxed the more they moved, her body opening up to him and her instincts taking over, moving with him just right and making his nerves sing with pleasure.

He could lose himself in her, he knew, and that was exactly what he did, once the slowness gave way to desperation and a mutual need for more. Her nails scratched softly at his back, asking wordlessly for more, and he gave it to her as he moved faster and nipped at her neck, hard enough to make her groan softly and tighten her legs around his hips. She grew more and more restless, whimpering and growing hotter and needier under him, until she finally took charge and managed to roll them over.

He was happy to let her take charge, her hair falling in a wild veil around them as she kissed him and began working her own faster, deeper rhythm on top of him. She stayed close, her breasts dragging up and down his chest with each new roll and push of her hips, their kisses growing more open-mouthed and rough until she let out a shaky moan and then sat up straight, finding a new and even better angle for herself.

He could feel the instant change, the way that he hit her now in all the right places and the way that her entire body pulsed and throbbed with the new sensations. He missed having her pressed against him but she felt too good for him to complain, her back arched and body moving _beautifully_. His hands sought her, running up her sides and cupping her breasts, teasing them until her faster movements had them bouncing. Then he was grasping her hips, thrusting up to meet her every move, feeling her release building before even she did.

He felt it and sensed it from the start, the coiling and tightening within her that gave it away, but when it hit her, her moan was surprised and he could _hear_ her hand in her own hair, grasping it hard while her other kept herself anchored to him on his chest, not far from his heart. It was incredible, from beginning to end, and he just barely hung on himself through her body clenching and all but strangling his own.

She half-collapsed when it was over, panting and falling into his arms, bodies still joined and as close as they could be. She was an utter wreck and he was still desperate himself, but he stayed patient and held her close, letting her recover and, eventually, sitting up with her still cradled in his arms.

"My _God_ ," she breathed, lifting her head and leaning her forehead against his. He grinned and brushed her hair back and out of her face, trailing all the way down to ends of the curly strands and ending up on her lower back.

"You're incredible," he murmured, softly kissing her lips as his hand trailed up her spine, the other cradling her face as he kissed her.

"Me," she scoffed quietly. "You're..."

Before she could tell him what he was, something on her upper back, between her shoulder blades, stole his attention. He paused, blinking once as his fingers traced a delicate, intricate pattern on her skin.

"Don't tell me you can feel that," she said, her grin audible in her tone.

"You have a tattoo," he replied, a little surprised, tracing the lines of ink and trying to decipher what they were.

"Yeah," she smiled, bewildered by him and a little bit in awe too. "Can you tell what it is?"

"There's a vine," he said, following the circular pattern with his fingertip slowly. "A flower." He covered a few more inches and added, "A _few_ flowers. And in the middle..."

"... A Celtic knot," she replied, filling in the blanks for him. "You like it?"

He grinned. "Yeah. What's it mean?"

"I'll tell you later," she said, winding her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him. "How do you want me?"

The question made his fingers fall still and a fresh new wave of heat roll through his veins. She kissed him slowly, sensually, satisfied herself but wanting to have him just as sated as she was. Then she pulled away and said, "You said you had a crush on me back in college. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm guessing then that you've thought about this before."

"Maybe," he teased, leaning forward and trying to kiss her, but she held him back with a slender finger on his lips.

"You can have me however you'd like," she all but purred, sliding her hand into his hair and kissing just under his ear. "I want you to feel as good as I do."

His eyes rolled shut, and his grip that he had on her with both hands tightened. He let out a rough exhale when her tongue darted out and licked a hot line along his neck, right where he was especially sensitive, and then he took her tightly in his arms and decided to take her up on her offer.

She was every last bit as incredible as he had thought she would be, even more so. He had a feeling that this was no fleeting moment, no night that would pass by and be forgotten about just as quickly. He'd remember this night forever.

* * *

When she had told him to take her however he pleased, she had thought that something rough or fast or physically challenging would be the result. After all, he was rather flexible and strong and she was in good shape these days too, and who knew what kind of positions or challenges he might dream up in that pretty head of his.

But then he went and surprised her again. Rather than toss her on her knees and slam into her or drag her off of the bed and take her against the wall - either of which she would have been perfectly fine with, really - he laid her down, _gently_ , on her side and then slid in behind her. He pulled her tightly against himself, molding her softness to his hardness, and she almost asked why he'd chosen that position of all the others. But then she realized why, without having to ask.

He couldn't see her, but in that position, he could feel _all_ of her and kiss her whenever he pleased. His hands had free rein of her body, and he could bury his face in her hair and touch her anywhere he wanted while he took her. And he didn't waste the opportunity.

It was as sweet and intimate as it was desperate and hot, from the first moment they were joined again and his lips had latched to her neck. Her arm stretched out behind her and fingers tangled in his hair, she closed her eyes and gave in to the moment, wishing it didn't have to end. Lucky for her, he dragged it out as long as he could, and she couldn't believe the self-control and patience that he had in his possession.

His voice was rough in her ear, letting out low and fleeting groans along with, occasionally, her name. He'd say it as he climbed higher, moving faster and using his hand between her legs to take her to the end with him, kissing her lips when she would turn her face towards his and desperately seek more of him. He held on until she was on the edge one more time, and then with a few final flicks of his wrists and thrusts of his hips against hers, she was arching and shaking as he let out the single most stunning mix of a gasp and a low, rough moan that she'd ever heard, right into her ear.

She was breathless, boneless, thoughtless. Everything else ceased to exist for a few moments as the pleasure washed over them both, leaving them to come down and catch their breath together in those hazy, sweet moments after it was all over. He didn't let go of her and she didn't release him either, though her previous iron grip on his hair had relaxed into a loose, open hand on his neck. Similarly, his hand moved to her hip and his face dropped down to her neck, both of them barely moving and breathing like they'd need an entire week to recover.

Instead of a week, however, it only took him a few moments to sweetly, tiredly, kiss her neck and then slowly untangle himself from her. She let him, turning on her back and watching as he briefly half-sat to pull at the sheets they'd nearly clawed off the bed in their enthusiasm. He fixed them as best he could, draping them over her and then lying back down. She didn't think twice about crawling into his arms and laying her head on his chest, feeling like it was where she was supposed to be and unable to imagine sleeping anywhere else but his arms that night.

He held her close, fingers running softly and slowly through her hair, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. Though she was tired and thoroughly worn out, her eyes were open and her lashes tickled his skin every time that she blinked.

Eventually she couldn't help but smile and peek up at him, still barely capable of rational thought and ending up going with a quiet, "So..."

He smiled, and she laughed softly before leaning up and giving him one more little kiss. Then she resettled back into his arms, her legs tangled with his as she muttered, "I figured you'd be good, but... _damn_."

He smiled again, eyes cast up at the ceiling as he replied, "Well, the senses help."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah... for some reason I think natural ability helps too."

"Maybe," he conceded, still playing with her hair and brushing it away from her shoulder strand by strand. "Though I think you've got me beat there."

She scoffed softly and shook her head, though she blushed a little. "I haven't done this in a long time. Kinda felt rusty."

"You weren't," he replied sincerely, as if the very concept of what she said was impossible. "You're amazing, Siobhan."

She smiled to herself, knowing he could feel it against his skin. Then, her thoughts drifting for a moment, she asked, "Are you gonna sneak out in the middle of the night and go beat up bad guys? Or do I get you all night?"

"I think maybe I can get away with a night off," he replied quietly, sounding as tired as she felt. She snuggled in closer to him, pleased with his decision. She hoped that he was staying not just because of how tired he was but because he wanted to truly spend the night with her. She was pretty sure that he did.

"I've missed your bed," she admitted, closing her eyes and enjoying the feel of the cool silk on her skin and his body keeping her warm beneath it. "It's so much better than mine."

"So _that's_ why you did all of this," he joked. "You could have just said you only wanted me for my bed."

She chuckled and playfully tapped his chest with her hand. "Well, it _is_ nice, but I like it better with you in it."

He smiled, then murmured, "I think I like it better with you, too."

Then he gently urged her head up, leaning down to her and kissing her softly. The frenzy of before was gone, but the passion was still there, and the warmth and care of his touch. She didn't think she could ever tire of kissing him, or of being this close to him. And that could mean trouble for them both.

But she didn't dare let anything ruin that night or the moment. They kissed until they had to stop and catch their breath, and then soon after, her head was back on his chest and her eyes were falling shut. She fell asleep to the soft, comforting sensation of his fingers running through her hair, and she slept peacefully throughout the night without waking once. The last thought that crossed her mind before she drifted off was that her decision to pay Matt a visit that night had been one of her very best as of late.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: so here it is, the very last chapter :D thank you guys so SO MUCH for reading and for your reviews and follows and faves, and I hope you've all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing this :D and if anyone's curious, this is not necessarily the last that I'll write of this couple, so if you like them, keep an eye out and they may pop up again in the future :)**

 **Also, one last important note: the lyrics used in this chapter are from an old song that is in the public domain, so please nobody report me! I'm not breaking the rules :D**

 **Anyway, thank you all again! Let me know what you all think, and if you wouldn't mind seeing more of these two in the future :D**

The following morning, Matt awoke not to sound of his alarm in his ear, but rather to the scent of brewing coffee and the sound of a soft, feminine voice singing in his kitchen. Normal ears wouldn't have been able to hear the quiet sounds from all the way in his room, but his perked up and woke him the minute she began to sing.

Blinking a few times and slowly waking up fully, he reached out and touched the unoccupied side of the bed, where Siobhan had slept at his side all night and had left the sheets smelling just like her. He then focused on the sound of her voice, singing to herself as she quietly moved about in his kitchen, and he smiled before sitting up in the bed and running a hand through his rather destroyed hair.

He couldn't remember the last time he had woken up _smiling,_ but he would certainly enjoy it while it lasted. After some feeling around on the floor for his pants - she was the one who had tossed them there, and he hadn't been paying attention to where - he slipped them on and then got to his feet, heading out of his bedroom and listening still to the words that the woman in his kitchen was singing.

 _But the last time I saw her, she grieved my heart sore, for she sailed down Loch Foyle and away from Culmore_ sang Siobhan, casually like it was a a song she knew well and hummed often. He kept his footsteps quiet as he got closer to the kitchen, not wanting to disturb her or let on that he was there.

It was times like those that he really did have an unfair advantage, because she was clearly not singing to be heard and was quite preoccupied with her task of fixing them both coffee, thus completely unaware of his ever-closer presence. He stopped just outside of the kitchen, leaning against the wall and listening as she poured the coffee into two cups and finished the song.

He liked how she sang like nobody was listening, since of course, she didn't know that there was _._ Her voice was light and airy, obviously untrained but pleasant to listen to all the same.

 _If I had the power, the storms for to rise_

 _I would make the wind blow and the salt seas to roar_

 _To the day that my darling sailed away from Culmore_

 _To the far parts of America, my love, I'll go and see_

 _For its there I know no one, and no one knows me._

A new, small smile on his lips, he made sure that she wasn't holding any hot liquids or in any other kind of dangerous situation before he proceeded to startle the crap out of her. "Nice song."

Just as he expected, her heart leapt out of her chest and she half-yelped in surprise, but the sound quickly became laughter as she turned around and exclaimed, "Oh my God! How long have you been standing there listening?!"

"Not long," he replied truthfully, wearing his own silly smile. "But I could hear you from my room, so..."

"Ah, dammit," she sighed, picking up the two cups of coffee and walking them towards his small table. "You weren't supposed to hear that. I'm not a singer, _at_ _all_ , but..."

"You sounded fine," he assured her, meaning it. "I like your voice. It was nice to wake up to."

She set the cups down on the table and turned back around, replying as she headed back into the kitchen for sugar, "I'm sorry. I know you've got super-hearing but you seemed pretty deeply asleep when I got out of bed."

He walked to the table, finding one of the chairs with his hand first before sitting himself down in it. "Don't worry about it."

Seconds later, she was back and padding softly towards the table, and just as she passed him, his hand shot out and grabbed her forearm. Before she could say a word or even know what was happening, he pulled her down to sit across his lap, and the sudden motion made her squeak a little and grab his shoulders to steady herself.

He couldn't help the grin on his face, especially when he let go of her arm and placed his hand on her leg, finding it bare until he reached the hem of his shirt high on her thigh. "So that's where my shirt went."

"I didn't think you'd mind," she said, setting the sugar on the table and then giving him her full attention. She wrapped one arm around his shoulder and touched his hair with her other hand, remarking, "Wow. Who _destroyed_ your hair?"

"A very... passionate, beautiful woman," he grinned as his hand slid to the back of her neck and urged her down for a kiss. She was still smiling when their lips met, and they kissed softly as his fingertips continued to roam and paint a picture of her in his mind.

Her hair was up, wrestled into a messy but efficient bun high on the back of her head, shorter loose curls falling from and framing her face. She wore nothing but his shirt, no bra underneath it, and it hung on her just right to keep her covered while making him itch to take it off of her at the same time.

Memories from the night before flooded his brain as their first kiss lingered and led to more, memories of her moans and her gasps and her scent and her _taste_ , and how amazing she felt when she let go and came undone under his touch. The more that they kissed and with every tiny flick of her tongue against his, he could imagine himself picking her up and setting her on the table, yanking his shirt up and off of her and spreading her legs so he could bury his face between them.

But he didn't. Instead, when she broke the kiss and reluctantly pulled away, he didn't protest as she said, "As much as I'd love to sit here and kiss you all morning, coffee's getting cold."

He could have handled cold coffee, but he let her go anyway, stealing one more short kiss before he let her up and off of his lap. He leaned closer to the table, reaching for his cup as she sat across from him. He then asked a little cheekily, "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, I was basically in a coma," she replied, smile evident in her tone. "But I'm so used to waking up early, I can't really sleep past 6:30. If you had stayed asleep, I could have gotten some kind of breakfast ready, but... instead all you got was coffee and a terrible kitchen concert."

He smiled. "It wasn't terrible. Really. What song was that?"

"This old Irish folk song," she replied. "It's very pretty. My grandma used to sing it all the time. She wasn't much of a singer either, but it was kind of her and my grandpa's song."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Kinda like in the song, he followed her to America from Ireland. They were together fifty-three years."

"Wow," he remarked. "Hard to find that these days."

"Yeah, it is. And by the way, since I said I'd tell you later, my grandma was the inspiration for my tattoo."

"Really?" he smiled faintly, not having to feign interest one bit in the conversation. He wanted to know more about her and her history, and he'd gladly listen to anything she saw fit to tell him.

"Yep. She was the one person who always _really_ supported me, told me I could do anything I wanted to do and not to let my dad boss me around. She was this fiery, opinionated, liberated woman - a real revolutionary back in her day - and I wanted to grow up and be just like her."

"Sounds like you have," he replied.

"I hope so. I'm still trying. But yeah... after she died I got my tattoo. It means a lot to me. She wasn't the biggest fan of tattoos, but... I figured she'd make an exception for one that honored her."

"Most people probably would," he agreed. "Do you have any other ones I missed?"

"No," she grinned. "Not yet, anyway."

"Did it hurt?"

"A little," she admitted. "It wasn't as bad as I was afraid it might be. It actually kinda felt good sometimes."

He raised his eyebrows. " _Really_?"

"Yeah, like... tingly and... I don't know. I don't know how to say it without sounding like a total freak."

He chuckled. "I'll just have to keep in mind in the future that you like a little pain sometimes." He heard her choke on her coffee a little, and the rather satisfying sound made him grin to himself.

She recovered quickly however, and after a moment, she asked, "So... when you say the future, do you mean you want this to be more than a one time thing?"

He paused, regretting what he'd said almost immediately. It wasn't because he didn't want what she was talking about, but precisely because he _did_ want it and that brought with it a whole slew of complications that would almost assuredly wreck this pleasant little morning after.

But before he could open his mouth and say a word, his phone rang. It was near the couch, having been left there last night and forgotten about after Siobhan had showed up at his door, so one quiet apology later, he got up to grab it and answer it.

If the morning had any hope of being as good and pleasant as the night before, the call snuffed out those hopes and brought him back into the harsh light of reality.

* * *

Siobhan sipped her coffee, now lukewarm but still tolerable, watching as Matt picked up his phone and answered it quietly. She knew something was wrong almost immediately, just by the way he froze and stiffened a little at whatever the person on the other line had told him.

Something about it made her own stomach twist, reminding her of the situation that she'd gotten herself into frankly much earlier than the night before. It had started from the moment she walked into his law office months ago and began getting close to him, not knowing at first that he was leading a dangerous double life. But she hadn't pulled away once she did find out, and now here she was, sitting at his table dressed only in his shirt and wondering just what was going to happen next.

She waited patiently, watching him in silence until he hung up the phone. He dropped it on to the couch and then stood there for a moment, eyes fixed in a despondent stare at nothing, until he sat on the couch and lowered his head into his hand.

That was when she knew that something _really_ bad had happened. Rather than pester him into telling her what was wrong, she got up from the table and quietly made her way to him, sitting down silently at his side, not saying a word. She knew he'd say something when he was ready, and she didn't have to be at work for another few hours. She had time.

In the next few moments, she watched as his downcast expression gave way to anger. That was when she finally spoke. "You okay?"

Eyes cast forward and shoulders tense, he muttered, "Someone I've been working with... a journalist... was just found dead in his apartment."

She had feared that it was something like that. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head a little. "He was important. He was going to..." He trailed off, anger growing more evident, and she wasn't sure what to do besides listen. But he stopped talking.

She could only imagine what he was feeling. He was fighting a battle that anyone could see was likely a losing one, his best friend wasn't speaking to him, the city at large thought that his alter ego was a killer, and now there was this to deal with. Though it was, to some degree, her job to know what to say to people going through difficult times, she wasn't sure that his case was even remotely similar to any she'd been trained to deal with.

"Is there anything I can do?" she finally asked, quietly and a little tentatively. "To help? You can talk to me about it, or... I can leave if you'd rather be alone right now."

Rather than give her a direct answer, he turned towards her, eyes downcast as he replied, "What you asked before... about us. This is why it doesn't matter what I want."

She blinked, furrowing her brows and bracing for whatever would come next. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have to finish this first," he said. "I have to. I've put enough other people in danger. I won't do it to you too."

She took a breath, nodding though he couldn't see it, trying to ignore the fresh ache of dashed hope within. It had just been so easy to imagine the previous night and that morning being a regular thing, or at least it had been until reality had poked its nose back into their business.

"And after it's over?" she asked. " _If_ it's ever over?" Something in his expression became pained then, and she felt like she needed to clarify the question. "Not... what you do. I know why you do it and I don't expect you to stop, and I would accept that. I do accept that. What I mean is... this... war with Fisk."

"I don't know," he replied truthfully. "I can't ask you to wait for that."

"You _could_ ," she said.

"I won't."

She paused, looking him over, wondering if he was right. She wasn't a stupid person, and if it was safer for her to keep her distance and last mint be a one time occurrence, then she wouldn't question that. She valued her safety as much as she valued not adding to the weight on his conscience, or the burden on his shoulders.

And so, she accepted his decision. "Okay," she said quietly, putting her hand on top of one of his. "But I'm not going anywhere. You're my friend and I want to help you, however I can. I don't believe that you _have_ to be alone."

"Might be best if I was," he said. "Better, safer for everyone else."

"Depends on your definition of better," she said quietly, looking down at her hand over his, then glancing back up to his face. He was off in his own head, and she knew that he needed time to himself to deal with everything, work through it at his own pace. She couldn't fix anything for him, but she could at least let him know that he truly wasn't alone.

She gave his hand a soft squeeze, told him that she was going to go and get dressed, and then left him there on the couch as she headed back into his bedroom. It was then, as she picked up her clothes from his floor and put them back on on autopilot, that she realized just how much she wished that the morning had gone much differently.

But, that was the price she paid for getting involved with a man like him. It just figured that this was how it would go, now that she'd finally found someone who truly interested her and clicked with her on a level that so few others ever had. This time, though, it wasn't a character flaw driving her away, and she refused to believe that hope was lost for them.

She was dressed and ready to go by the time he came wandering back into his room, still half-dressed and looking as glum and conflicted as he had when she'd left him. He lingered in the doorway as she slipped on her shoes, and now that she was put back together and out of excuses to stay, she took a breath and slowly walked his way. She stopped once she was close enough to touch him, then said softly, "I've gotta get going."

He nodded. "I know."

She looked him over again, at his battle-scarred flesh and eyes that told a long and complicated story if one knew to look there for it, and reaching out and pulling him into a hug seemed like the natural thing to do. He didn't resist her, and she got the feeling that he was grateful for the embrace and the moment of comfort, however short it was.

"I'd probably lose my license for saying this," she said, her lips close to his ear as she held him close, "but I believe in what you're doing. And I'll be here whenever you need me." She pulled away, bringing one hand to the side of his face. "I mean it. If you ever need to talk, or want to hang out, teach me some more awesome moves, or..."

" _Or_ ," he repeated, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips, but nothing like the ones he'd been shooting her before the phone call happened.

"Or... anything you need," she smiled. "Just say the word."

"Thank you," he told her sincerely, still lightly holding her following their hug.

Her eyes dropped down to his lips, her smile lingering on her face though it really was a bittersweet moment. She focused on the sweet part, however, moving her hand into his hair as she leaned forward and closed her eyes, placing a soft kiss on his lips. Though he wasn't filled with the same fire as before, his hands slid up her back and one cupped her face as he kissed her back. The kiss was sweet and slow, a farewell as much as a promise, and it only served as further confirmation to Siobhan that he was worth waiting for. The way that she felt when he kissed her wasn't something that just anyone could cause in her, and it wasn't in her nature to give up or give in.

When they broke apart, she opened her eyes and leaned her forehead against his, taking a deep breath and telling him, "Be careful. Don't do anything stupid. And when it's over, I'll still be here."

His reply was a look that was hopeful but still guarded, like he was afraid to let himself hope, and then one more kiss. He poured himself into it that time, making her believe beyond a reasonable doubt that parting was the last thing he wanted to do. She was out of breath by the time the kiss came to an end, and she _really_ didn't want to leave then, but she forced herself to slip out of his arms and go before she ended up talking herself into dragging him into bed one more time.

"I'll see you around," she said, finally disentangling herself from him and taking a few steps back. "And I mean it. Don't disappear. I'm still your friend first."

" _Really_ good friend," he teased, a little bit of his charm peeking through the surface.

" _Really_ good," she grinned, walking towards the door. "Don't forget it."

"Trust me, I won't," he replied, and she brushed her hand over his one more time before she muttered one quiet last goodbye and walked past him.

She looked back once, just before she walked out of his apartment and into the hallway. She felt fine, accepting of it all, until she was back out in the city, on the sidewalk. It was a little chilly out but not too bad, at least not yet, and a sense of dread overcame her at the thought of what the troubled, corrupt city might do to the man she'd just left alone in his apartment.

It was a good thing she had faith, otherwise the next few weeks would have been a lot more difficult.

* * *

Unlike the last time they'd parted ways following a heated encounter, Matt and Siobhan kept in touch this time. With everything that happened in the coming days, the only thing that kept her from worrying sick about him was talking to him and, a few times, seeing him in the midst of what she'd called his war seeming to hit its peak. Everything happened so fast, a lot of it even unfolding on live TV, and she would watch it between patients at the hospital while praying silently for any saint who was listening to watch over him.

On the night that it all came to a head, she was filling out patient paperwork in one of the doctor's lounges and staring with wide eyes at a television sitting on the wall when Fisk brazenly escaped his first arrest. The footage came from an overhead news helicopter, and she felt sick watching him simply get away, leaving a trail of bodies behind him. She had hoped that it was finally over when he'd been hauled in by the FBI, but it obviously wasn't.

She had then slipped away from the ears of others in the hospital, finding a private corner that she could make a call from. It took several calls before he answered, but she finally got hold of Matt and talked to him long enough to confirm what she already knew - he was going after Fisk, and his night was only beginning. She made him promise to call her once it was over, to let her know that he was safe, and then she hung up.

Her shift ended soon thereafter, and she went home and immediately set up camp in front of her TV, keeping an eye out for any breaking news that might tell her what was going on. Her phone rarely left her hand, but as much as she checked it, it didn't go off. The news wasn't much of a help either, but she stayed awake well into the early morning hours waiting for whatever kind of word she could get.

Her cat kept her company, curled up in a contented and carefree ball next to her lap on the couch. By the time 3 AM rolled around, Siobhan was exhausted and her phone hadn't rang or buzzed with a new text once. She was starting to not only fear the worst but anticipate it, and it was in the midst of chewing her nails and fretting that she heard a quiet knock on her door.

She all but leapt off of the couch, quite offending the cat in the process, her mind immediately racing and jumping to the worst possible, and irrational, conclusions. As she went to the door, her first thought was that it was some kind of would-be attacker paying her a visit, but then she realized that if it was, they probably wouldn't have been polite and knocked first. Then again, in that city, one could never be too sure when it came to odd knocks on the door at the wee hours of the morning.

Once she got to the door, she placed her hands on it and stood on the tips of her toes to peer out the half-broken peephole that her landlord had promised and failed to fix. She could only see a fraction of who was on the other side, but it was enough, and with a huge wave of relief crashing through her, she frantically threw the door open and quietly exclaimed, " _Matt_?!"

"You're still up," he noted, almost casually, though by the look on his definitely still-intact face, she could instantly tell that he wasn't trudging back after suffering a great defeat.

" _Duh_ I'm still up," she said, reaching out and pulling him inside by his hand. She looked him over, dressed in a hoodie and dark pants rather than whatever he considered battle gear these days, then said, "I've been watching the news all night and sitting by my phone waiting for you to call - what happened?! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he assured her, letting her walk him to the couch and sit him down so that she could have a more thorough look at him. "It's over."

She looked up at him, restraining herself from reaching up and taking his glasses off so she could see his eyes and better gauge what he was saying. "What's over? You'd better mean that in a good way because -"

"Yeah," he smiled, nodding softly. "Good way, I promise."

"You caught him?" she asked.

"Back in custody," he confirmed. "And he's not going anywhere this time."

She blinked, hardly able to believe that it was true. Since she'd ended up back in Matt's life, Fisk had been the boogeyman lurking in the background, pulling strings, seemingly untouchable. To think that now it really was over and Matt - along with everyone who had aided him along the way - had won his war, she was almost afraid to believe it, for fear of somehow jinxing it.

But she _did_ believe it. And as another, much deeper and lasting wave of relief settled over her, she smiled and leaned forward to pull him into a warm, lingering hug. "I can't believe it. And you're okay. _Are_ you okay?" She suddenly pulled away and looked him over again, briefly cupping his face and examining a few minor cuts along the edge of his jaw.

"I'm fine," he smiled, reaching up and taking her hands in his to still them. "Turns out body armor exists for a reason."

She raised an eyebrow, not at all minding the way that he continued to hold her hands long after it wasn't necessary. "... What do you mean?"

He shrugged and replied vaguely, "Maybe you'll see it in the papers tomorrow morning."

She sighed a little and shook her head. "Okay, well... I'm going to go and get some stuff to clean up the wounds you _do_ have, and then I want to know everything. The whole story from tonight, from beginning to end."

"Yes, Doctor," he grinned faintly, and she grinned back before getting up and heading to her bathroom, feeling suddenly very energized despite the late hour and like she could stay up all night and be perfectly fine.

And that was what she did, curling up next to him on the couch and taking care of his minor wounds as he told her in great detail the story of his night. Throughout it all, she continued to barely manage to believe that it was all real, and that he was perfectly fine, sitting next to her and not even half as battered as he'd been the first time he'd come to her for help.

An hour might have passed - maybe more, maybe less, she didn't know - and by the time that she had finished her work and the conversation had wound down, she found herself sighing and laying her head on the cushion behind her head as she looked at him and said, "So... Fisk is put away. You and Foggy made up. The city might have a fighting chance now to get better. You accomplished everything you set out to. Finally got what you wanted."

His glasses were off now, on her table getting sniffed at pointedly by her cat, and he replied quietly, "Not everything. I have a feeling that this was all just the start. But now I know that I _can_ do it, and I _can_ make a difference."

"A pretty huge difference," she smiled. "There aren't many men like you, you know. And here I was terrified all night that I helped get you killed, because I've always encouraged you, and I thought... well, I thought the worst, which I've already said about ten times, so you're probably sick of hearing it."

He was quiet for a moment, angled in her direction and contemplative as he then said, "I think I needed that encouragement. And for the record, I never get sick of hearing your voice."

She was hopeless, completely hopeless, blushing almost immediately despite trying to force the heat in her cheeks back down to wherever it had come from. "Well... maybe I should start singing again. Might change your mind."

He chuckled softly, and her stubborn blush didn't seem to be going anywhere. It lingered still as he reached out and found her hand, then said quietly, "Thank you, Siobhan, for... _everything."_

She smiled, warming all over due to the sheer, overwhelming sincerity of his words. "I kinda feel like I should be thanking you instead. Saving the city and all."

"It's still got a long way to go," he replied, though not in a pessimistic sort of way. Just unerringly realistic.

"Don't we all," she mused.

"Someone will try to take Fisk's place. There's a vacuum now and somebody will fill it."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But you've proven that nobody's invincible. You've given people hope, you know. Including me."

His lips quirked and he asked, "Hope for what?"

"Several things," she replied bit evasively, glancing down at their hands, which were still touching. She slipped her fingertips up towards his wrist, under his sleeve, brushing over his skin lightly. "Mostly that you haven't forgotten what you told me awhile ago."

"About what?"

She glanced up at him and replied, "You can _read_ me pretty well. What do you think?"

She then trailed her fingers back down, and just as she began to pull her hand away from him, he gently grabbed her wrist and stopped her. Her eyes flashed up to his, then back to their hands when they ended up tangled together again. He intertwined his fingers with hers, and her heart skipped in her chest.

"It's late," he said suddenly, lowly, thumb tracing along the back of her hand. "I can leave. Let you get some sleep."

"Or you could stay," she replied almost instantly, having no shame in the matter. "Lose sleep with me."

"You haven't changed your mind, then," he said, almost as if he found that fact surprising. She thought it should really be the least surprising thing in the world.

"Have you?" she asked, shifting a little closer to him, her fingers still twined with his. A tiny shake of his head was her only answer before his free hand touched her face, then slid into her messy bun at the back of her head to pull her closer as he leaned in to kiss her.

Something about it was different from the other times he'd kissed her. It was more confident, more sure, not a trace of conflict or hesitance or even restraint on his part. It was perfect, better than she could have imagined, and much more than she had thought she would get. It had been easy to think that it would never happen, that they'd never be able to be truly together the way that they just might finally be able to be now. She was more than happy to be dead wrong in the matter.

She was breathless when they broke apart after several long moments, her heart already aflutter and surely drumming revealingly loudly in his ears. She slipped her hands up, holding his face as she bit her lip and prayed that they were truly on the same page. She wanted to ask, but she didn't want to ruin the moment.

She got her answer, however, after he kissed her again and they lost themselves to each other. He reached behind her head and took down her hair, the curls tumbling down her back and his hand instantly burying itself within their depths. And then, as their kisses grew more heated and the air around them began to change, she felt herself being slowly and gently eased down to her back underneath him.

Her cat, who had been eyeing them rather distastefully from the floor, scampered off to go and try to salvage its own night of sleep as far away as possible. Meanwhile, she pulled down the zipper of Matt's hoodie and successfully got it on the floor, raised her arms to let him take off her shirt, and then pulled him back down to kiss him hungrily, wrapping her legs around his hips and letting out a breathless noise into his mouth when he ground himself against her.

Despite the passion and the ever-growing desperation for more, in the midst of it all, there was a moment where they both slowed down, foreheads pressed together and breath coming heavily and mingling between them. His thumb gently touched her lower lip, tracing along it softly, and he said, "Sure you want to put up with me?"

She grinned and brushed her fingers through his hair, then brought them forward to trace along his cheekbone. "Just as long as you make time for me, in between being a lawyer _and_ a superhero."

"I'm not a -"

"Yes you are," she interrupted, pulling him back down for a kiss. "Deal with it."

He smiled into the kiss, and then she tried to roll them over so that she was on top, accidentally sent them toppling off the couch to the floor in the process. She laughed after profusely apologizing if she hurt him, and after he convinced her that he was more than fine, he pulled her down and she kissed him again as hope and the distinct threat of _happiness_ replaced the dread that had been weighing so heavily on her all day, and for longer too.

They didn't get a lot of sleep that night, but it was more than worth the consequences the next day. It was the end of one chapter and the start of another, and it might have been reckless and risky and unpredictable, but she'd never been one for taking the easy road. They seemed to have that in common.

The night passed by in a state of blessed, shockingly easy and misery-free bliss. Then, the next day, after parting ways and getting to work, downing enough caffeine to wake the dead, Siobhan was on her way to a patient's room when she overheard a handful of nurses talking about the previous night's events in the city. They happened to leave one of that day's papers laying on a counter at the nurse's station, and when they had left, Siobhan slipped by and picked it up.

She couldn't help the smile that bloomed goofily across her lips as she looked at the front page picture, then read the headline declaring what was apparently the new and much catchier name that the city had for their masked man. She made a mental note to tease the crap out of him later over it, even though she quite liked it, and he was right - she did get to see the new suit after all.

She was busy admiring the look when Louise showed up next to her, giving her a look and asking, "What's got you smiling so damn big?"

She shook herself out of it and tried her hardest not to blush, smiling at Louise and shrugging as she put the paper down. "Oh, nothing."

Louise didn't look convinced, heading to her computer and side-eyeing the paper as she went. " _Daredevil_. Just when I think these damn names can't get more ridiculous."

Siobhan laughed, glancing again at the picture before shrugging, "He's kinda hot, though." Louise shot her a look over her shoulder, and Siobhan shrugged again innocently. "What? He is!"

"If you like tight pants and death wishes," Louise said, turning back to her computer screen, which flickered to life when she moved her mouse, revealing a rather shameless screensaver of a smiling and radiant Thor. "Now _that's_ what I'm talking about."

Siobhan laughed, deciding to go ahead and grab the newspaper and save it for later, just as something of a keepsake. She laughed a lot that day, feeling lighter than she had in a long time and getting more than one inquiry regarding just _why_ she was smiling so very much all of a sudden.

Not that they'd believe her if she even told them, but... if they only knew.


End file.
